Contest Winners and Other Awards

This has been a wonderful weekend. Kelly @ Kelly's Compositions held a blogfest, and I met so many new writers. My own entry helped me reach a new level of comments. I’ve never had more than twenty. It was awesome! So many great first pages out there. Thank you to everyone who stopped by to read mine.

I started a new WIP on April 1st thanks to Tina Lynn’s 500 words challenge. Her whip sewn with awesome has been keeping many of us in line. And thanks to the challenge, I have hit a total of 6000 words so far in my new YA-paranormal. The trick with these challenges is not trying to get to 500 words – it’s not allowing yourself to stop trying until you hit 500. If it’s not coming and the characters aren’t talking - you have 500 words. But if you hit your stride, there’s no telling how many words you can pump out.

For me, in the beginning, I have to allow myself to write crap. The entire point of the first draft is getting the story down. It’s not about beautiful words and kickass turns of phrases. That comes later. First tell the story – then revise, beautify, and perfect. More on my style for first draft later. That’s another post.
Last night the Keep It Going Contest came to a close, and we have three winners. But before I reveal those, I have a few awards to hand out.

Nicole @ One Significant Moment in Time gifted me with the Prolific Blogger Award. Thank you! I’m not sure how many people I am supposed to give this to, but I have selected three.

• Donna Hole – She has a wonderful blog, and is full of passion. If you are not following her, get over there nowish. I’ll wait. *taps toes*

• Natalie @ A Sound of Rain – Anyone that would name their blog after such a serene thing is a friend of mine.

• VR Barkowski – She does a fabulous job of keeping blog readers informed of upcoming events and contests as well as keeping an upbeat motivational spirit.

Donna Hole has blessed me with the Soulmate Award, and I think she is a soul mate of mine. This award requires that I gift it to 5 people, make up something about them (not mean), and link back to the ORIGINAL POST.

• Sierra Godfrey – She is an avid hunter of a rare breed of solar powered hopping garden gnomes. Fierce critters that must be stopped.

• Tina Lynn – She has five authors held captive in her basement. They said the phrase “can’t do it,” and now they are chained to desks. They should be done with their first drafts by the end of next week.

• Hannah at Musings of a Palindrome – She has been involved in a secret love affair with Nathan Fillan. He proposed, but she turned it down – wanting to maintain the friends with benefits relationship. Why ruin a good thing?

• JM Diaz – He has a very honed in sixth sense which he uses in his writing. He sees an event, writes it, and then it comes true. Scary stuff.

• Ronnie Griffin – She has a mad skill of being able to catch a fly with a pair of chopsticks. Reaches right up and plucks it from the sky. Awesomeness.

Now moving on to the winners of the Keep It Going Contest.
The first was a special award especially for one of the contributors to the story. You can read the entries HERE. The winner of her choice of either a 15-page critique or a $15 gift certificate to Amazon is…. DONNA HOLE!!

The next two winners were randomly selected. I tallied all the entries and used the random number generator in excel. The following individuals have won their choice of either a 10-page critique or a $10 gift certificate to Amazon:

VR Barkowski
Tara @ A Feel of Something New

Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks for playing!! Send me an email (click on the envelope on the right hand of the screen – your right.)

Wednesday we will be back on schedule for another Watcha Say Wednesday, tune in then.

So, how was your Easter? Are you in the writing or revision phase? Any exciting news for anyone?