I write stuff for kids...and muse on writing, children's books, and the publishing industry in general

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

First Crusader Challenge Wrap-Up (Vote For The Winner)…

It’s time for the wrap-up of our First Crusader Challenge (woot!). For those of you who haven’t yet heard about my Writers’ Platform-Building Crusade, check it out here. We’d love you to join in the fun.

The Challenge rules were simple: Write a Crusader Challenge post beginning with the phrase, "I sat down to write the other day and..." Bonus points were awarded for use of the random words “quidditch,” “Mars,” and “elephant.” Check out the full rules and points to be won in my post on the First Crusader Challenge here.

And the prize: an interview with me for The Insider Scoop, where I share interviews, useful tips and tricks, and all sorts of insightful information from those deep within the children's book industry (here’s a past interview for The Insider Scoop if you want to check it out).

It’s amazing how many different types of posts we had in this Challenge. Some were humorous, some inspirational, some educational, and others revealed a little something about the Crusaders themselves.

And I’m so impressed by how seamlessly some of the Crusaders used the random words in their posts. I know many of their followers read right to the end of the post before they even realized the words had been deliberately fitted into the piece of writing.

For anyone who'd like to check out the entries, here is a list of those who took part but didn’t score the full amount of points:

Rachael Harrie (Rach Writes…)
Patricia A. Timms (Simplicity in Volumes)
Erica and Christy (Erica and Christy)
Serena (I See You See)

The Shortlist of Winners

The maximum amount of points that could be received was 200, and here is the list of those who scored top marks, in random order (I’ve disqualified myself from winning the prize):

Marieke (Marieke’s Musings)
Rachel Morgan (Rachel Morgan Writes)
Tessa Quin (The Quest For A Literary Agent)
Alison Stevens (Wistful Wanderings)
Quinn (Seeing, Dreaming…Writing)
Megan Bickel (The Write-At-Home-Mom)
Angela Pena Dahle (A Pen In Neverland)
Su (Cheekyness)
Miles McG (An Author’s Quest)

And now to the voting… Check out the posts in the above shortlist (yeah, I guess it’s not that short, but honestly, I couldn’t decide between all these cool posts enough to narrow it down further). Then come back here and leave a comment telling who you think should win the prize. It’s up to you how you choose the winner; it may be the funniest, most inspirational, wackiest, best use of the random words, or some other criteria. To be fair, no voting for yourself!

I can’t wait to see what you think. Voting will run until 11.59pm on Friday 15 October, after which I’ll announce the winner. I’ll make the final decision if there’s an inconclusive result or a tie.

(*holds breath and wonders who the winner will be*)

22 comments:

Bast said...

My vote is for Rachel Morgan ... I loved her poem!

Megan K. Bickel said...

I vote for Miles. Great imagination piece!

Su said...

I vote for Angela. I read her story three times, including once out loud for my husband. :)

Marieke said...

I love Rachel's poem too! My vote goes to her! ^.^

Anonymous said...

I'm a hopeless decision maker, but here goes, I thought Megan's was pretty good at disguising the words in the post. Phew that was a hard one. Well done everyone. I won't miss the boat next time!

Patricia A. Timms-McGehee said...

My vote goes to Quinn. Seamless. Great job to all!

Alison Pearce Stevens said...

Ooh, this is tough, but I'll vote for Rachel Morgan. The poem made me smile.

A Pen In Neverland: Angela Peña Dahle said...

Oh my! I have to say I loved Rachel's poem--so whimsical! I do adore poetry! I loved the rhyme. and loved the circumstances that it was written under---lack of electricity, etc. LOL. What a story!

A Pen In Neverland: Angela Peña Dahle said...

Rach: just so you know....the link you have for my story is bad because I reposted it and deleted the old one. Here is the correct one:

http://a-pen-in-neverland.blogspot.com/2010/10/apparently-it-is-mad-hatter-day.html

Denise Covey said...

Hey Rach, I joined too late to participate by writing a post, but I've been reading the short listed entries and my vote goes to Marieke at Marieke's Musings. It was very clever and spoke about what I love - travel and being aware of the world around us. Very imaginative.

I posted about the Crusade today, linked back here and am looking forward to the next challenge. Great idea!

Rachael Harrie said...

Hi All, thanks for your comments.

@Angela, I've updated your link, so that should be right now.

@L'Aussie, thanks for your post. You're now on our Crusader list along with a couple of new Crusaders, and I'll remind everyone to update the list at our next Crusader Challenge.

Interim voting results are as follows (still a couple of days to get your votes in):

Rachel Morgan - 4 votes
Quinn - 1 vote
Megan - 1 vote
Marieke - 1 vote
Miles - 1 vote
Angela - 1 vote

Grandpa said...

Hi, I was unable to leave a comment at Marieke's - is there a problem there? Sorry for asking this through here Rach

Rachael Harrie said...

Hi Grandpa, no probs at all :)

I've double-checked the above link just in case, and that seems to be working. And I actually just left a comment for Marieke a few minutes ago which went through ok. Perhaps give it another go, or try again later? Let me know if it still doesn't work though and I'll check with Marieke if there are any problems at her end.

Best of luck,

Rach

Grandpa said...

Thanks Rach, it's ok now - just put in my comment. Cheers

Tessa Quin said...

I'm gonna have to vote for Rachel Morgan as well. I loved the stories, but this poem just stuck with me. I think I read it three times the first time, and once again just now ^.^

Unknown said...

My vote goes to Angela for a really creative story :-)

Unknown said...

PS. Totally jumping up and down inside with excitement about all my votes!!

Miles McG said...

I'm going with Megan. I just loved the whole post and how clever it was! :)

A Pen In Neverland: Angela Peña Dahle said...

Jumping up and down with you Rachel!

May I add a rockin' fist pump?

It wouldn't be a crusade unless we shared the joy. Gleeful....whatever we want to call it here. LOL.

GREAT JOB to everyone!

Rachael Harrie said...

Status update on frontrunners:

Rachel Morgan: 5 votes
Angela: 2 votes
Megan: 2 votes

Unknown said...

:-) :-) :-)
*happy*

Megan K. Bickel said...

I'm very excited I got 2 votes! Yippee!! Thanks Kanga & Miles!!

Related Posts with Thumbnails