2,651 Entrants, and the Winner is...

The finalists of the Nathan Bransford 3rd Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge (now closed) will be announced tomorrow! I read some fantastic, thought-provoking, hilarious (in only one paragraph, hysterical!) entries, and I'm looking forward to seeing if any of my faves are the finalists.

While you wait, congratulations to the winner of the Coaster's little side-contest... guessing the total number of entries! The most accurate guess-- without going over-- was made by Melane at Chasing the Dream. Thanks for playing, Melane! The award, as you may remember, is that you get to wear my ermine cloak and jewel-encrusted scepter for the whole of one day. I sent them via magic, and I hope you enjoy the luxurious feel of faux silken fur (I Googled ermine, and they are too cute to REALLY turn into a cloak. Besides, my pet ermine would have hurt feelings). And I'm sure you'll relish the power, and the biceps, that comes from waving a jewel-encrusted scepter around. Side effects may include speaking in Old English and being a teensy bit pompous, but that's only very rarely permanent. AND there's a bonus! Because this was the Coaster's very first contest and I wanted to do something special, I will also link three of my very favorite posts from the winner's blog! I encourage everyone to check out these posts, and Melane's lovely writing blog!

The Coaster's Very First Contest Winner

Melane at Chasing the Dream

The Three Very Best Posts at Melane's Blog, to date, in Diana's Humble Opinion:

Number 1!!!

Forward March

The Spark

Thank you to all participants!

Tomorrow we shall have no Book Talk, and here's why: remember the infamous Scout camping trip? Well, our friends who camp and do outdoorsy things together caught wind of this, and they invited us to go camping this weekend. You may recall that we don't camp, but the kids, those giant-eyed, squishable-cheeked kids, they want to go so bad. As much as I hoped the rain might keep falling so we could possibly postpone this inevitable family event, we are going camping on our first ever family camping weekend! Yay!! Yay for camping! Or at least, yay for making the kids happy :)

Next week I will Book Talk about The Maze Runner. This is the book I won at The Literary Girls blog giveaway and I am so excited to start it. Have a great weekend everyone!