First off, the winner from Friday’s post/away is CHELSEA B. Congratulations! You’ve won a copy of Lilli Feisty’s DARE TO SURRENDER as well as the Robert Alvarado pin-up calendar and your choice from my backlist! Email me with your address so I can get your book out and your calendar ordered!

And now for the weekend winners. I want to take a moment to thank everyone who stopped by! Your stories were funny, and sweet and inspiring and I giggled and said, “aww,” more than a few times. Just FYI winners weren’t chosen based on story content but each and every one brought to mind a story from my own family, so thanks for taking the time to share!

Our Grand Prize Winner for the 5 page critique from Holly Root is: JULIE BUTCHER.

The winner of a 5 page critique from me is MARJORIE LIGHT (don’t you just LOVE kids? LOL)

And the winners of the query letter critiques are: GAIL Z, LIZLAFF, and SMOZER.

If each of you would email me in the next 24 hours to claim your prize.(Up at the top of my site is a list of drop-down menus. If you go to DIRTY SKINNY, you’ll see one labeled contact–it’ll open a pop-up window for you to email me. If for some reason, it doesn’t work for you, leave me a comment and I’ll get in touch!)

It’s officially Saturday which means today’s “Love” post is for the writers. My agent, Holly Root, is giving up a 5 page critique to one lucky writer!

Here are the deets again: You will have until … Sunday night at 9 PM CST at which time I’ll close the comments (cuz that’s about the time I go to bed!) to share those family stories. They don’t have to be long or elaborate and grammar isn’t an issue–this is, after all, a blog! They can be as simple as, “My parents brought me home on Halloween and that’s why they call me their little pumpkin.” By the way, that story is partly true LOL

This way you can enter but you don’t have to worry about fine-tuning a pitch and I don’t get comments like, “Please enter me!” The winner will be announced Monday morning sometime between 10-12 CST (I have a dayjob).

And after a conversation with some fellow writers, I’m going to give away some critiques from as well–another 5 page crit to one lucky person and 3 query letter crits to three other peeps. As with all the other 14 Days of Love contests, you MUST leave a valid email address–that way if you forget to stop back by, I can drop you a line. If you fail to leave a valid email address and fail to collect your prize (email me) in 24 hours (by noon Tuesday), an alternate winner will be chosen.

OUR DAY THREE WINNER IS JODER!  CONGRATULATIONS YOU’VE WON A COPY OF ‘LUCK OF THE DRAW‘ BY KAREN ERICKSON  (AS WELL AS YOUR CHOICE FROM MY BACKLIST)! EMAIL ME IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE! (Up at the top of my site is a list of drop-down menus.  If you go to DIRTY SKINNY, you’ll see one labeled contact–it’ll open a pop-up window for you to email me.  If for some reason, it doesn’t work for you, leave me a comment and I’ll get in touch!)

Just FYI…PHOTOS MIGHT NOT BE SAFE FOR WORK!

There are few things I love in this life as much as I love books–music and art being two of them…oh, and the kids–I guess.  While I can carry a tune without a bucket, I couldn’t draw or paint if my life depended upon it.

If you check out Feisty’s avatar here at NAS, you’ll see it’s a pinup model.  Well as it so happens, I LOVE pinup!  I blame my grandfather…he had this ashtray with a little pinup girl on it.

Anyway, you can imagine my excitement when I discovered the fabulous Robert Alvarado on DeviantArt (click to browse his gallery).  And every once in a while,  he includes one of my other favorite artforms in his work–INK!

I’m not sure it gets much better than that. 

So what about you?  Artistic or just an admirer and what’s your medium of choice?  Today’s prize includes your choice from my backlist, Lilli’s new book DARE TO SURRENDER (you can check out 5 cool facts about her latest release here or read an excerpt courtesy of the GCP website. I’m about half done with DTS and I promise you will NOT be disappointed!  Also, I’m throwing in a copy of Robert Alvarado’s 2010 calendar (gotta support the arts!)

Follow Dear Son

The winner of yesterday’s THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT give-away is Lisa954! Congrats!  You’ve got 24 hours to contact me and you’ve won e-books from both Denise McDonald and Raine Weaver as well as your choice of Ghost Hunter’s Season 1 or Nightmare on Elm Street movie pack (movie’s 1-4).

I’ve been blogging since 2004, I’ve Myspaced and Facebooked, and joined writer’s groups and I Twitter.  Tweet?  I’m a Twitter-er?  Uh anyway…admittedly all the online contact can be a huge time-suck/waste/energy drainer but for writers, who tend to spend a lot of time in isolation (and/or their heads), social media is a great way for us to get out and interact with real humans (most of the time!).  Matter of fact, I even have two Twitter accounts! I know I know! There’s me and then there’s Dear Son where I talk bad about my kids.  Ok I don’t REALLY talk bad about my kids–I just say stuff on Twitter that I can’t say to their faces because, yeah, it’s inappropriate.

Case in point: What part of ‘actions have consequences’ is so difficult 2 understand? U were bad n now ur being punished. Same as when u were 2.

Follow Me!

And I’ll be honest, I love Twitter like a fat kid loves cake–trust me on this (I was a fat kid).  I probably waste too much time on Twitter and I probably say things I shouldn’t on Twitter (hello…Dear_Son ).  But Twitter is one of the few places you can say things like this:

@karenerickson: I know…is it wrong I like that song Tik Tok cos she “brushes her teeth with a bottle of Jack”?

@gwenhayes: I think the last ep of LOST will be Bobby Ewing coming out of the shower telling his autistic son to put away the snow globe.

@mark_henry Chat it up, Bitches! I’m still at Bitten by Books until Midnight! http://bit.ly/aqpPhy

and @LilliFeisty: These are very naughty pirates.

Thanks to Twitter, I’ve made some great new writer friends like @thrillerchick, @ladyhawkins, @MyraMcEntire, @jennygardner, @jenthegingerkid — who lives like FIVE MINUTES from me so I even know her IRL uh…in real life — @gwenhayes, @giguhl, @cheekywench & @jeannevb JUST to name a few!  And I’ve discovered some fabulous new-to-me authors! (like @thrillerchick aka J. T. Ellison!).

So do you Tweet?  Do you Facebook?  Do you Myspace?  What are the rules of your Twittering road?

Or do you eschew social media entirely?  If so, come to the dark side–we have cookies!

Today’s prize is your choice from my backlist & Karen Erickson (that’s @KarenErickson for you Twitter folks) LUCK OF THE DRAW.  This is a print book containing three novellas and Karen will ship anywhere in the US and Canada.

———

Twitter birds thanks to Productive Dreams. (And here). Aren’t they cute???

This Saturday’s prize is a critique of the first five pages of someone’s manuscript by my agent, the fabulous Holly Root.

Those five pages (and your query) are your first impression and they should shine, suck the reader in and make them want more (or request the full in this case!).

Now I know some people think, “How can you tell anything in five pages? Big deal–five whopping pages!”

I’ve judged a TON of writing contests via RWA and you absolutely can tell if something works (for you or just works) in five pages.  Matter of fact, it only takes one page to tell if someone is  just starting out or not.

So, here’s how it’s going to work…Come Saturday around Midnight a post will go up and you will have until … Sunday night at 9 PM CST at which time I’ll close the comments (cuz that’s about the time I go to bed!).  The post will be asking for your family stories.  They don’t have to be long or elaborate and grammar isn’t an issue–this is, after all, a blog!  They can be as simple as, “My parents brought me home on Halloween and that’s why they call me their little pumpkin.”  By the way, that story is partly true LOL

This way you can enter but you don’t have to worry about fine-tuning a pitch and I don’t get comments like, “Please enter me!”  The winner will be announced Monday morning sometime between 10-12 CST.

And after a conversation on an email list with some fellow writers, I’m going to give away some critiques from yours truly–another 5 page crit to one lucky person and 3 query letter crits to three other peeps.   As with all the other 14 Days of Love contests, you MUST leave a valid email address–that way if you forget to stop back by, I can drop you a line.  If you fail to leave a valid email address and fail to collect your prize (email me) in 24 hours (by noon Tuesday), an alternate winner will be chosen.

—–

Void in Iceland (KIDDING!!!!!!!)