A Ghostly Write-Away Contest

I'm excited about this month's contest for three reasons: a great topic, a great judge and a GREAT prize.

First, the topic for this month is "Ghosts" and as usual you can take it many different directions (I kind of plan it that way). I suppose I came to the topic after recently remembering a short story I read eight years ago--"Ghosts" by David Beaty which was anthologized in Otto Penzler's The Best American Mystery Stories 2000 edition. But I digress . . . you'll have to look that one up for yourselves.

Second, our guest judge is the lovely, the talented, the friendly Stephanie Precourt from Adventures in Babywearing. This woman is writing all over the internet so I have great confidence that she'll be an excellent judge for us. As a sidenote: I usually leave it up to the judges to decide how many Honorable Mentions they wish to award but I'm now asking that there be no more than three because I too want a piece of the action.

This month I will also be awarding an Editor's Choice Award. While this won't carry a prize I'd like to be able mention which one of the entries is my own personal favorite. Stephanie will still be awarding the First Place Grand Prize and up to three Honorable Mentions but I'm going to stick my neck out and say which one I thought was the best. Hope this doesn't get me in trouble . . .

Finally, our prize this month is provided by The Company Store, which carries wonderful things for your bedroom, bath and home but who also happens to have several holiday collections--including HALLOWEEN (hear that Melanie? Halloween!)--that will perk up your house in no time and get you in a hugely festive mood.

The Company Store has generously donated a $50 gift certificate to get you started in your holiday spending so what's it going to be? The ghostly window posters? The Halloween candles? Or my favorite, the Spooky Bats? Doesn't matter because things are priced nicely enough that you can put together an attractive party package with several of these things before you burn through that gift certificate.

Fun fun fun. So here are all the "gory" details:

1. Write a post or find one in your archives on the topic, "Ghosts" and email your post's permalink to me at scribbit at gmail.com. The permalink is the URL of the individual post--not the URL of your blog--usually found by clicking on the post title or time stamp and copying the URL that appears in the address field. I will accept entries through Wednesday October 22nd. If you fail to meet the October 22nd deadline I will still happily publish your link with the list of entries but it will not be judged. I reserve the right to reject submissions if they fail to meet the topic or if they contain objectionable content--and no gore please, though the subject is "Ghosts" I always prefer a good metaphor to a good mauling.

2. Publish a link to the contest page here at Scribbit in either your entry post or in a separate post. I'm not picky how you do this, just give the contest a little mention as a courtesy and nod back. Don't stress over it because I won't.

3. Check back here on Friday October 24th when I will post a complete list of the entries along with the Write-Away Winner, the Honorable Mentions and Editor's Choice Award.

4. Please remember: Just as I did last month, I will list the entries along with a small teaser for each. Just the first sentence or two of each post to give people an idea what they might expect if they should be so bold as to click on the entry. This would suggest that your opening sentence might be particularly important. Just to warn you.

Also, please be aware that while you are welcome to include graphics or photographs with your entries the judge will only see the text of your post. No links, no pictures, no name of your blog. While visual posts are always beautiful to see on your blog I will only send the text to Stephanie and your entry will not be able to rely on visuals to influence her judgment.

I'm sorry if this makes it difficult, there are some amazing photograhers out there, but it is a writing contest and I'd like to keep things focused on words.

As always, all featured winners will get to take home this attractive Write-Away Winner button (thank you again to Calico for putting it together) which he or she may display in their side bar if they wish.

I look forward to reading your entries, happy writing!

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