So. The Halloween draw for a free copy of Return of the Dead Men (and Women) Walking anthology full of stories about undead folk of all shapes and sizes. The road to this draw was not an easy one, I can tell you, and there were dramas a' plenty. Extravagant plans for a glittering gala event at my neighbourhood centre for struggling scribes with some local literary luminary desperate for exposure drawing the winning number fell apart when our usual last Wednesday of the month meeting was replaced by a non-Halloween, Friday night trivia contest. Since I seem to have misplaced my tiara, perhaps this was for the best.Fortunately, a busy friend who is not me kindly agreed to pop around this evening and do the honours for a quick cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit or two.
Unfortunately, with that settled, I realised I'd forgotten to buy a witch's hat or pumpkin. No worries, I thought, I'll get one at the cheapo place next to the supermarket when I go shopping. So, after putting in a few hours of flat out writing here at home (yay!) I sauntered into town, but alas, I was so diverted by winning $13.90 on my lottery ticket and procuring a whopping great pineapple for the low price of $3.95 that I forgot my original mission. My mind at the moment, as I may have mentioned a few times previously, is not exactly a steel trap. The superhuman ability to improvise under great duress, however, is still mine to wield, so a woven hat covered in giant seashells became an official Sea Witch's Hat. My friend turned up, tutted at the lack of a suitably black and conical piece of head attire or pumpkin for the draw, took her cup of tea and chocolate biscuits up front, politely declined to be photographed, then adequately performed her task. Five slips went into that Sea Witch's Hat on this balmy Halloween evening, but only one came out again.
I won't even go into how my computer then stuffed me around and it looked as if I might not be able to post this notice.
And so without further ado, but lots of trumpet blowing to celebrate the event (a freebie!!!!), the lucky winner is: Congratulations, Mary!!! If you send me your mailing address, I'll forward the information on to the people at Bards and Sages Publishing, and they'll make sure you get your prize. Enjoy.
And a big thank you to everyone who participated. My blog stats show that oodles of people clicked the pumpkin picture and checked out the competition, but it seems that only the few, the fabulous five, were brave enough to commit. I wish I had more copies to give away so you could each get one. Thank you again.
Now I'm off to put on my pyjamas and watch a suitably scary Halloween movie.
4 comments:
Oh, wow! I reckon if I play my cards right, Mary might let me read it when she's finished. Here's hoping.
Halloween was a blast in our suburb! We had a letter in the mailbox saying a couple of kids might come around, so I made up the cutest little gift boxes for - get ready for it - FOUR kids. I knew I could do a little sleight-of hand to deal with five.
In the first batch, seven turned up. Not to worry. I shifted things around a little, with a nod to the accompanying parents to deal with any potential tantrums.
As they raced out the driveway, whooping, my heart sank. Thirteen other littlies raced in, excited to see what the others had got.
But we were out of goodies. We've only had about three kids in the last decade. Who could have guessed?
A household member leaped into the car and barreled down the highway to Woolies - well, drove sedately two blocks - racing back with more little goodies suitable for preppies - is this a telegraph story? - and I in the meantime asked the second group to swing back our way later in the evening. (Of course they didn't.)
The next group weren't preppies, of course. But they took our little party favors politely, three items each, as we argued anxiously in whispers about whether we'd have enough left for the thirteen we expected back.
The next group were teenagers! Stress levels were rising in our household. I told them we didn't have anything for their age group, unless they wanted some of those little curly whistles that drive everyone mad at kids' parties.
Yes, they liked them. Whistling and whooping, they headed off.
Totally wrung out by this stage, we hurried out to our letter-box and whipped off the orange balloon that signalled our willingness to be tricked or treated.
I think Halloween has arrived in Melbourne.
I like the orange balloon idea. What an excellent way to ensure that people who don't want to participate don't get unwelcome visitors and perhaps spoil it for the kids by growling at them.
And yes, it sounds like at least your part of Melbourne has been converted to Halloween. Here where I live, not so much, and yet every year, I make sure to stock up on stuff just in case... Afterwards, I simply eat the goodies myself. Win, win.
But good on you for going to so much trouble to make it a fun day for the kids, and teenagers, and yourself too.
Oh yeah, hopefully Mary will let you read her winnings. Hmmm, sounds suspiciously like a contest cartel to me :)
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