Voting ends at 6am MST (8am EST) !!!!

Woohoo! It’s been such a thrill! I’ve been blogging, tweeting, dreaming, sleepwalking, and totally driving my family and friends crazy with my obsession over my first ever Blogfest. I wanted it to rock! Every detail  implemented to perfection. However, just like planning a wedding, things don’t go as smoothly as you’d like. We had a couple of URL problems on Mr. Linky, and we couldn’t narrow down to only six semi-finalists. It’s when you let go of those niggling little details that something wonderful happens.

When I first decided on selecting six semi-finalists, I had thought I would only get maybe twenty or thirty participants. We totally exceeded that number, so we decided on ten semi-finalists for you all to vote on.

Size mattered. There were several entries that went over the word count that we couldn’t choose because of the rules. Some I truly loved and I applaud your talent! It wouldn’t have been fair to those who followed the rules to keep them in the running. Here’s a recap of the rules:

Here’s how it works. On your blog site, write a new scene or post a scene from your current project that is no more than 500 words, which has a rocking cliffhanger (pun intended). It can be any genre. Just leave us hanging, craving more, and cursing your name for making us want to turn a page that isn’t there. Easy peasy, right? Right.

I’d like to extend a huge and grateful thank you to my fellow judges, Connie and Joannine, for giving up their time to help me read and decide on the entries. They tirelessly stuck with me as we whittled down the list. I learned what agents mean when they say this industry is subjective, because everyone has different tastes. This was an asset while judging, enabling each genre to have a cheerleader so to speak. It was a difficult decision, and each entry was read several times as we were trying to narrow down to the semi-finalists.

There are wonderful prizes from Cassandra Marshall to be had, and tomorrow we’ll have another surprise. Speaking of surprises, today is Cassandra’s birthday. Go to her site here to wish her a happy birthday. Furthermore, in celebration, she’s giving away prizes on her site!
Okay, I’m jabbering, so without further ado here are the ten semi-finalists. Please click on their names to read their entries and vote in the poll below for your favorite. The poll will be open for twenty-four hours. So don’t dally and hurry up and vote!

LS Murphy
Tessa Conte
Rachel Morgan
Jamie Manning
Marieke
Rachael Harrie
Dominic de Mattos
Jodi Henry
Shelley Watters
Wendy Tyler Ryan 

Categories: Misc

26 Comments

Rachel Morgan · October 27, 2010 at 5:22 am

Woo hooooooooooo!

Thank you, thank you for picking me to be a semi-finalist! That is so exciting!

*jumps up and down gleefully*

Linda · October 27, 2010 at 5:55 am

Oh, thanks for choosing me for a semi-finalist! I appreciate it so much. I’m glad you liked the scene!
The competition is sooooooo tough. All these entries are fab.
LS Murphy

Jamie · October 27, 2010 at 6:33 am

Yay! This is so exciting, thanks for picking me!

Joanna St. James · October 27, 2010 at 6:45 am

they were all so good voting was hard. Good luck guys

Summer Ross · October 27, 2010 at 6:47 am

This is a hard vote! all of these stories are brilliant!

Tessa Conte · October 27, 2010 at 6:53 am

Woohooo!! OMG how cool! Can’t believe I’m on that list! YAY!

Jodi Henry · October 27, 2010 at 6:59 am

Thanks for picking me for the semifinalists. It’s an honor and I’m in shock. Good luck everyone. All the stories up there are great.

Jennifer Hoffine · October 27, 2010 at 7:08 am

Every time I click on Jodi Henry’s name I get Shelley Watters site…anyone else with this problem? I don’t want to vote until I’ve seen them all.

Jennifer Hoffine · October 27, 2010 at 7:11 am

Okay, I went to your last post to find it. Still, I hope she doesn’t miss out on any readers because they have the same problem.

Brenda Drake · October 27, 2010 at 7:17 am

Thanks Jennifer for catching that! I’ve corrected the problem. I was up too late last night. 😀

Kristina Fugate · October 27, 2010 at 7:37 am

Voting is going to be so hard! lol.

Thanks for this freaking awesome blogfest, Brenda 😀

Wendy Tyler Ryan · October 27, 2010 at 8:48 am

Thanks for choosing me as a semi-finalist.

Marieke · October 27, 2010 at 10:33 am

Wooohooo!! So excited! 😀

Jamie · October 27, 2010 at 11:25 am

Wow…1 really IS a lonely number!

DLCurran · October 27, 2010 at 11:34 am

Such great entries – tough choice! Good luck to all the finalists! 🙂

Rachael Harrie · October 27, 2010 at 11:58 am

Great blogfest, had a lovely time! Thanks so much for choosing me to be a semi-finalist 🙂

Rach

Melissa · October 27, 2010 at 1:37 pm

SUCH a great blogfest!

Melissa · October 27, 2010 at 1:37 pm

SUCH a great blogfest!

L'Aussie · October 27, 2010 at 1:42 pm

Brenda, congratulations on a great blogfest. Congratulations to the semi-finalists. It’ll be a hard one to vote on..:)

Francine · October 27, 2010 at 2:50 pm

Hi,

Many congrats to all the semi-finalits’ and thanks for hosting a wonderful blogfest!

I’ve been published before and did join merely for the fun of it: nothing more – I did say that somewhere. After all, I’m addicted to blogfesting, and already entered in another. 😉

Jennie Bailey · October 27, 2010 at 5:47 pm

Congratulations to all the semi-finalists! This was so much fun – from the writing to the reading. One of the best blogfests I’ve participated in (so congrats to you as well, Brenda, for hosting such a successful first blogfest)! I look forward to your future blogfests!

E. Arroyo · October 27, 2010 at 6:36 pm

Congrats!! It’s so hard to pick. I think they were all great.

Mary Jo · October 27, 2010 at 7:55 pm

thanks for hosting, Brenda! one of my fav’s was selected as a semi finalist so I’m happy to give my vote to …. 🙂

Brenda Drake · October 27, 2010 at 9:05 pm

I’m trying to stop by and comment on your entries, but I’m so tired. It’s been a long couple days and I’ve enjoyed it! So I posted the semi-finalists or finalists or whatever – I can’t think – this morning at 6 am MST(my time). So the voting will end on Oct. 28th at 6am MST (That’s 8am EST) Tomorrow I’ll post the WINNERS sometime before noon (I hope).

Again, I want to thank all the wonderful writers who participated in this fest. I hope that if you didn’t win a prize, that you received the many gifts of comments, followers, and new friends. Gracias!

J.C. Martin · October 28, 2010 at 2:41 am

It was an incredibly tough choice! Thanks for the contest. Had the opportunity to read so many cool cliffhangers!

J.C. Martin · October 28, 2010 at 3:45 am

P.S. There’s a lovely pink ‘Cherry on Top’ award for you on my blog! Come and get it!

http://jc-martin.com/fighterwriter/awards/

Comments are closed.