25 January 2011
Posted in
Blog -
2011
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Well, Pamela H. from Texas forfeited her Grand Prize Winner status by ignoring multiple emails (and tweets) about being the second Grand Prize Winner in the Cassie’s Unicorn Egg Contest, and therefore we have a new Grand Prize Winner: Janae K. from Goshen, Indiana. Janae has responded, writing:
"Wow I am just SSSSSOOOOOOOOO excited to have won this contest I was sitting and reading my E-Mails and screamed so loud my parents had to come check on me! hah"
So, as planned, I’ll mail out all the prizes including that second Unicorn Egg this weekend, if anyone in the USA does not get their prize within two or three weeks, please email me with LOST PRIZE in the subject field, and I’ll track your package down.
As for the Black Rose Contest, my fingers are sore from telling people that an entry with a subject of Contest is not going to be in with the B’s when I alphabetize the entries for the attorney to randomly select eleven. I have blogged about this before and I’ll say it now . . . but I’m not going to respond to any more entries with a subject of Contest. There are far too many of them, and I don’t know where they are coming from, since on my site the rules are perfectly clear. If I were someone who’d been on some other site and heard that Contest is a proper subject for an entry, I would be slightly irked at the people who had wasted my time. Please, please, Contest writers, read the rules. They are very simple and clear—and the majority of people have them down precisely.
And yes, I am very sorry that the Black Rose Contest is not open to people outside the USA. I’ll explain why again. It’s because the roses are so fragile that it is not likely that they would make it to another country. In addition, the cost of posting the rose would be almost as much as the rose itself. And, finally, it is because your own government might hit you with a gift or customs tax, which I would not be able to pay. Nevertheless, I am brainstorming ways of making black roses available to people outside the USA.
Next on the list of what please not to write to me about is “When is Strange Fate (or for the uninitiated Night World 4) coming out?” I don’t know when it will come out. I haven’t finished writing it. I thought I had finished a “Volume 1” of it years ago, and had 500 manuscript pages to prove it. But Simon & Schuster didn’t want to publish the work in two volumes, and my editor there had some very valid criticisms, with far-reaching effects. And then the whole subplot about the post-Apocalyptic world took on a life of its own, and I removed it so that it could be finished as a new, quite serious book, called Brionwy’s Lullabies. What I am substituting are dreams that the main character, Sarah Strange, has about other characters you’ve seen in the Night World series, starting with Poppy and James from Secret Vampire. And no, she won’t have a dream for each book, and they won’t be in order.
Finally on the Secret Circle TV series front, again I know nothing. Nothing, I swear. I was promised a look at the script but even that has not materialized—I’ve been asked to “wait a little longer.” Why? I have not the slightest idea. I am expecting the deal to fall through at any second. Which is either my typical cynicism or a gut feeling for this paricular venture.
Finally, on a more cheerful note, the acquisition of my dream house is proceeding apace. Today I found that the builder and owner is just as sweet and gentlemanly a guy as I thought he was: he agreed to all the amenments my own real estate attorney suggested without hesitating once. I’m still all aglow at the thought of landscaping the backyard with my very own puppy (yellow Labrador Retriever for preference, but I’ll take just about anything that grows into a big cute dog) romping around and chewing on the deck. Inside, I have an office for writing in, and another office for doing bills and looking efficient in (my writing room is anything but efficient looking.)
A final thought. Any of you who know much about me know that my favorite author is Sir Terry Pratchett, the second-most read author in the U.K.; the seventh most-read in the USA, and a gentleman of rare humor, compassion, and eloquence. And any of you who know much about this extraordinary man know that he has a nasty, early form of Alzheimer’s Disease. Yes, he is still writing books, but I know how I would feel in his position. I’d like to ask all the young people who may be reading this blog to give their parents, grandparents, or other older relatives a big hug and be very grateful if they don’t have some form of dementia. Be glad that you have them. Think about what it would be like if you didn’t. We all have things to be very grateful for that we take for granted. Until we lose them.
