200 followers, contests, and critiquing buddies

WOW. I bet it's as hard for you to believe this isn't a Blogfest as it is for me. ;) If you check out my Blogfests page and scroll down a little, you'll see how insane March has been for me so far. And it's not even over yet!! I signed up for yet another Blogfest today, and I already had another couple happening in the rest of March. I figured I may as well go completely nuts for the entire month - instead of just going most of the way. :)

Okay, moving on. I have over 200 followers!! This is pretty cool, and I know it's the done thing to do contests and the like. But I'm not a contest-y sort of person, as in organising them. Still, I'd feel guilty if I didn't, because everyone else does, so I figured I could at least figure out a few prizes to give away to my followers.

Prizes:

• 1st: $20 Amazon giftcard
• 2nd: Your choice of a 1st page AND query critique (any genre)
  
  OR
  
  one of the following books:
  
  
  

  	John Marsden'sTomorrow, When the War Began - book 1 in a totally awesome Young Adult series, which was recently made into a motion picture (which I haven't seen). This series was BIG in Australia. Biiiiiig. Adults and kids loved it. And anyone in between.
  	Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn (book 1). Isobelle is an Australian fantasy author. My favourite book (and series) of hers, the Legendsong, wasn't available, and I haven't actually read the Obernewtyn series but I get the impression it's pretty cool! She started writing it at age 14 or so, I believe.



• 3rd: Your choice of a query or 1st page critique (any genre, and no I don't have a creative writing degree...but I am a trigger-happy grammar Nazi! Yay!)

NB: The books are only available if Book Depository ships to your country. Check the list here.

To enter the contest, simply leave a comment here. Also, if you want to blog about the contest, you get an extra entry. And now I feel like a blog ho for trying to get more attention. But you know, I'm just trying to fit in. Hehe.

Just kidding. I seriously want to thank everyone who's followed my blog so far. I haven't said it before, even when I passed the 100 mark, or even the 50 mark, but I really do love hearing from you guys and also checking out your blogs (where it's possible, i.e. you have your blog linked from your profile). This is a great community we've got, and I love that a writer can find so much support and inspiration from her brethren scattered far and wide around the globe!

Oh, and the contest will end by March 23, my time (that being Australian WST).

Anyway, moving on. I want to mention the YAtopia Agent Pitch Contest, for which you can submit your YA or children's two-sentence pitch and go into the draw to win an impossibly awesome prize. Click on the link to find out more! Very awesome opportunity indeed!

To end this entry, I want to say that I love my critiquing buddies. Jenn right now is helping me hash out some refinements to my SUNDOWN plot, and she has introduced some excellent possibilities. She is always ready to offer her extremely "out there" (usually hilarious) interpretations of where a plot could go, and already she's helped me a lot (and made me laugh a hell of a lot...I mean, last night I was standing in the middle of a frenzied punk rock concert just laughing, because I was thinking of the idea Jenn came up with for one of my minor characters). So I guess this is a shoutout to my critiquing buddies who are awesome, and also to CPs in general because they are totally groovy in general!