And the winner of the "Summer Breeze" contest is…

Peter, a.k.a. wordshiv!

Congratulations to Peter for winning our “Summer Breeze” Contest. You can read his winning entry here. Peter will receive a copy of “The 3 A.M. Epiphany” by Brian Kiteley, a book filled with over 200 unique writing exercises and prompts sure to inspire your summer season of writing.

Thanks to everyone who entered our fourth contest at Scrawlers.com. We had 50 entries, making this our largest contest yet, and we appreciate everyone who tried their hand at writing a story or making comments. You can expect another contest at Scrawlers before summer’s end, and we hope you stay with us in the coming months.

Keep writing,

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Last day of the Summer Breeze contest

Give yourself fifteen minutes today to write. I suggest splitting your time into three five-minute increments:

1. Spend five minutes writing a story for the Summer Breeze contest.

2. Spend another five minutes reading a contest story by another entrant and make a comment to enter again.

3. Repeat the second five-minute increment.

The Summer Breeze contest ends in thirteen hours. Our winner will be announced tomorrow.

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The "Summer Breeze" Contest ends in 36 hours

Don’t miss out on your chance to win “The 3 A.M. Epiphany” by Brian Kiteley to fuel your summer writing with over 200 writing prompts and exercises. Our Summer Breeze contest at Scrawlers.com ends at 11:59pm CST on Friday. Entries have been steady but that doesn’t mean you should miss out on your chance to contribute a new story or note to Scrawlers, and all with the hopes of a fresh new book just for you.

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Announcing the "Summer Breeze" Contest

Scrawlers.com launched a new web design this week to make posting and commenting on stories a breeze and it’s all just in time for the summer writing season. To celebrate, we’re giving away a copy of Brian Kiteley’s “The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises” in our Summer Breeze Contest.

Brian Kiteley believes, as the Scrawlers team believes, that embracing constraints in writing can lead to amazing things. He writes, “Limiting devices allow an infinite variety of approaches, but they also provoke new ideas precisely because they are restrictive and liberating at the same time.” To this end, Kiteley has written a book of strong advice coupled with over 200 writing exercises to help writers explore new territory. In Kiteley’s own words, “The idea of this book is to encourage beginning and experience writers to rethink their methods by playing with form, style, paragraphs, sentences, and words, and in so doing, appreciate the value of their own infinitely varied experiences.” With writing exercises like The Music of Prose, Public Space vs. Private Space, Funhouse Mirror, The Bunny Planet, The Closet, Misdirection, and Goodnight, Colorado, this collection is truly filled with uncommon ways to explore writing choices.

HOW TO ENTER:

1. Post a new story that takes place at 3:00am with the tag “3am” (no punctuation, all one word) at Scrawlers between May 7, 2009 and 11:59pm CST on May 15, 2008. You may post one eligible story per day for a potential of up to nine contest entries based on your story posts.
2. Post a comment on another writer’s story that meets the above specifications between May 7, 2008 and 11:59pm CST on May 15, 2008. You earn one entry per comment – only one of your comments per story is eligible. The potential for comment-based contest entries depends on how many other writers post stories during the contest. Comments you make on your own stories do not count as entries.

Make your summer writing a breeze with over 200 writing exercises by entering our Summer Breeze Contest. We’ll announce the winner on Saturday, May 16, 2009. Good luck and get writing!

Rules

Start writing your contest entry now.

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And the winner of the "Dead of Winter" contest is…

Ryan, a.k.a. frombytherivertrash!

Congratulations to Ryan for winning our “Dead of Winter” contest. You can read his winning entry here. Ryan will receive a copy of the movie tie-in cover edition of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and fits-right-in-your-backpocket edition of To Build a Fire and Other Stories by Jack London.

Thanks to everyone who entered our third and final contest for 2008 at Scrawlers.com. We have more on the way for 2009 and would love to hear from you about your experience with our contests. What works for you? What could we improve on? What would you like to see for next time, in terms of prizes?

Keep writing,

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"Dead of Winter" contest ends in 24 hours

That’s right, you have exactly twenty-four hours to enter the Scrawlers “Dead of Winter” contest. This is your chance to earn yourself a little something extra under the tree this year, so get writing.

Tomorrow, a new Friday recommendation.

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Our "Dead of Winter" contest is almost over

Just a mid-week reminder of our latest contest…

If you haven’t been entering the Scrawlers “Dead of Winter” contest this week, you still have a few days to post your stories and comments before the 11:59pm deadline this Friday night. We’re giving away a copy of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and To Build a Fire and Other Stories by Jack London to one lucky Scrawlers writer.

Will it be you?

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Your Friday Recommendation #31

Today’s recommend is for you to take part in our latest contest over at Scrawlers.com. Full details are at the website, and here’s a copy of the email that went out to members today. Not a member yet? Signing up is free and safe. On to the contest email:

Scrawlers wishes you a safe and relaxing holiday season, as well as the spare moment to get some writing done. As the snow falls here in Minnesota and as the semester break comes for many young writers, winter is definitely on our minds and we hope you’ll enter our new “Dead of Winter” contest.

We’re giving away a copy of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Jack London’s To Build a Fire and Other Stories to one lucky Scralwers writer. Krakauer’s nonfiction novel tells the tale of young Chris McCandless who abandoned his family, bank account, and freshly-earned college degree for a life on the road. The novel culminates in Chris’s journey into the Alaskan wilderness in a story that is equal parts man vs. nature and man vs. self. Jack London’s greatest short stories, fiction or otherwise, are based on his real-life adventures in the Yukon, and the writer served as an inspirational figure to Chris McCandless. Read the short stories that inspired Chris to go on his Alaskan journey and feel the freezing cold of this collection of snowy stories.

Both Into the Wild and To Build a Fire and Other Stories are perfect reading material for those who want to stay indoors on a chilly, snowy evening and are quick enough reads that they can be finished during the semester break. This week at Scrawlers, enter for your chance to win the “Dead of Winter” contest.

Please visit the contest page for entry details:

http://scrawlers.com/contests

We’ll announce the winner on Saturday, December 20, 2008. Good luck and get writing!

Regards,

Barry & Nate

Final day to enter the "Back to School" contest

Today’s your last chance to enter the Scrawlers “Back to School” contest. Enter to win a copy of “On Writing” by Stephen King by 11:59pm CST. Full contest details are at Scrawlers.

Who will win?…

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More free books for you to win

If you like our “Back to School” free book contest, then you’ll love the rest of today’s post…

Philip Weiss*, a.k.a. “King Rat,” has scoured the Internet, found a slew of free book contests, and posted them at his blog, Rat’s Reading. I had no idea there are so many websites giving away books these days, but I’m glad to know now and we’re lucky King Rat is archiving them for us. He mentioned our contest and oh, and he’s running his own book giveaways, too.

Another great place to pick up free books is our oft-mentioned favorite virtual bookshelf, LibraryThing. They get early review copies from publishers and in turn pass them on to their registered users to read and hopefully review on their blogs and Amazon. It’s definitely a luck-of-the-draw situation as 350+ people will request one of the ten or so copies available. That said, I’ve picked up two (yeah, yeah, I need to review them here…) and it’s worth a shot.

* (According to Weiss’ bio, his nickname comes from the James Clavell novel, a piece of assigned reading in his high school days. I haven’t picked up any Clavell in a long time but man oh man, was Shogun one of my favorite books in middle school. I must have read that 1300-page spider-smacker a dozen times between 6th-8th grade. I could even speak the tiniest bit of Japanese that I picked up from that book. Well, perhaps not proper pronunciation but…)