Should I Do the A to Z Blogging Challenge?

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I keep swinging from yes to no and back again. I’d like to do it, it sounds fun. But on the other side I have these reservations:

• Am I going to have time for this? My husband is constantly telling me I over-commit and make myself too busy. Full-time work, I’m a mother, a wife, writing a novel, working on multiple short stories, promoting myself on Twitter, managing two blogs (yes one wasn’t enough for me), I’m usually doing writing workshops (four right now) and my latest project is to establish a newsletter (subscriptions are open if you’re interested). Perhaps he has a point?
• If I do have time for this, I need 26 topics. I usually only blog once a fortnight on this blog, so that’s a year’s worth of topics. I think about that fact and it’s an immediate disincentive to do this challenge. Those topics could get me through the next 12 months!
• To cut that down, I could post some fiction instead. I don’t usually post fiction on my blog, preferring to seek alternative markets for it (OK I haven’t done much of that yet, I’m working on it, all right…) but I could do some flash fiction for the blog.

So tell me in the comments what you think? Should I:

1. Participate in the A to Z Blogging Challenge with 26 topics; or
2. Participate with 13 topics and 13 pieces of fiction (or some other combination of your choice); or
3. Just write some fiction for you to read and not participate at all; or
4. If you insist, you can suggest ‘Other’.

This is the list of possible topics I have so far.

A – Achy Breaky Heart and the Perception of Country Music

B – Big Business, Big Bucks

C – Country goes City – Drizabones in Sydney CBD
D – Daylight Robbery – How My Electricity Company Steals My Solar Power

E – Etiquette of Critiques

F – Fidelity and Its Continuing Relevance

G – Gun Laws: Should Australia Relax Regulation?

H - ???

I – Intellectual Property Rights for Books Explained

J - ???

K- ???

L - ???

M- Music – In Defence of Country & Western

N – Names – Did You Change Yours?
O – Oh My God, Are You Really Wearing That?

P - Public Transport and Cityrail’s Campaign Against Undesirable Commuters
Q – Discuss With A Q – Reasons to Use This Comment Widget

R - Raising the Bar for Self-Pubbed Authors

S – Switching from Blogger to Wordpress: Should You?

T – Triberr Etiquette

U - Unwinnable War? Ciara Vs Telecommunications Giant

V – Vexatious Blog Habits

W – Writing Workshops – Are They Valuable?

X - ???

Y - ???

Z - ???

Anyone for a dose of fantasy fiction?

Feel free to suggest a topic you’d like me to rant about or some inspiration for a short story in the comments. Let me know which of these topics you’d most like to see!

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You Want Me To Pay You For What?

Today I bought movie tickets online. I don’t usually do so, but we didn’t want to risk missing out. Everything was fine until I noticed I was being charged $3.65 per ticket administration fee!

What?!

Just so we’re clear, let me get this straight…. There is virtually no cost to you in selling tickets to me online, but you want to charge me an administration fee? A per person administration fee? When whatever costs you might be incurring can’t possibly be related to the number of tickets I purchase but are surely related to the number of transactions? I’m positive the costs are higher to sell me a ticket at the cinema, but there’s administration fee attached to that!

This is just outrageous. Essentially the cinema has reduced its costs and is charging me more. Double whammy! 

Even more outrageous is the practices in outlets selling tickets to concerts and the like. We have two, in Australia. When you choose your tickets, you also choose if you want to pick them up in person, have them mailed to you, or have them emailed to you and you print them yourself. The bizarre thing about this arrangement is all of them have an administration fee attached.

I understand postage if the tickets are posted. In the world of online sales, everything has postage. Mostly. Unless you spend more than a certain amount, which come to think of it, is less than what two concert tickets usually cost. And really it costs $.065 to send a standard letter envelope and you want to charge me $8.50? You had to twist my arm, but you’ve convinced me there really is no excuse for charging so much to deliver tickets by standard mail. 

I will accept the $8.50 charge to pick the tickets up from the box office. These days everyone wants to encourage people NOT to come to their office. There’s probably something weird about that… anyhoo, moving along to the real whopper...

An administration fee to have my tickets emailed to me? What does it cost you to email my tickets to me? Nothing. So… basically I’m paying you for the privilege to use my own ink and paper to print my own tickets… 

To add insult to injury, I believe they lump a transactional administration fee on top and, if you’re paying by credit card (what? This is an online purchase, right?) they’ll charge you a surcharge as well. 

Hold on a minute, I just have to do an invoice up. Right, my bill for the ticket agency to outsource their ticket-printing facility to me is now in the mail. Terms are 14 days, got it?

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