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*)