So, have you heard this one?

Thank you for coming to our celebration giveaway blogpost! Before we start tonight, I thought we'd have a little entertainment, brought to us by the fine children who send in jokes to Laffy Taffy. Here we go!

What pounds in your ears? A drum! Ba-dump-dump-ching!

What? An encore? Okay, here you go, kids!

What bee does well in school? A spelling bee! *wild applause*

Thank you! Thank you! And now, to reveal the winners of the 200th blogpost giveaway. I was going to have a few superheroes pull names out of a hat, but they're all in bed now. (Some wild trunk or treating will exhaust even the stoutest of comic book characters.) So, instead, I used Random.org. And here they are!

#1: The winner of the signed paperback copy of The Adoration of Jenna Fox, the $10 Barnes and Noble gift card, and the cute little notebook made by moi is...

Kendra Leigh! (Remember that water fight in Alicante? Yeah, those were good times.)

#2: The winner of the signed copy of The Dark Divine, $10 Bath and Body Works gift card, and the cute little notebook made by moi is...

Whirligigdaisy! (Remember when you were the cool teacher's assistant who got to sit right next to Sara Zarr and I was in complete and utter awe of you, because, well, you sat right next to Sara Zarr and you made the entire class those adorable book marks? Yeah, those were good times.)

#3: The winner of the signed copy of The Princess of Glass, the $10 Applebees gift card, and the cute little notebook made by moi is...

Donnetta! (Remember when you gave birth to me and raised me and became my friend when I stopped being an annoying teenager? Yeah, those were good times.)

Hooray for you all!

Please email me at laguapatona [at] gmail [dot] com with your addresses and I will send these out this very week. Seriously. I really will. I won't forget to send them. And I won't lose part of it between now and then. (Kind of like I did with those sexy magnets, Kendra. I lost the y, and I wasn't comfortable sending you, well, you know...magnets without a y.)

Oh, except for my mom. I'll probably just bring yours over to your house. That's not a problem, is it?

Okay, well, there it is, folks!

For those of you who didn't win, don't give up hope! There will be more blogposts, I promise. And more contests too!

And maybe, if you're really lucky, more jokes from the back of my pilfered Laffy Taffies.

NaNoWriMo Tip #1

You have a couple more days to enter the 200th blog post contest. If you haven't done it, do it now, and then come back here and read this post.

Have you done it? Okay, here's the deal: NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starts next Monday, November 1st. You only have a few more days to decide if you're going to do it. And you're going to do it, right? Good. Well, since you're going to do NaNoWriMo, I'm going to give you some helpful tips I've learned from NaNoWriMo and from writing in general to help you out.

Tip #1: Get a plan, Stan.

Even if your name isn't Stan, getting a plan is a good idea. There are several things you want to plan for during NaNoWriMo; thinking about these things now will help you avoid some (as in a teeny-tiny bit) of hair-pulling later on.

• Get a novel journal. I use a journal/notebook for each of my novels to keep all of my ideas in. This works much better than sticky notes for me or any other method. Mostly because I have a two-year old who likes to eat sticky notes.
• If you are the kind of person who plots out your novels, do that now! If you're not that kind of person (like me!), just sit back and enjoy the ride.
• Plan to write crap. Seriously. If you're planning on writing the Great American Novel in one draft, NaNoWriMo may not be for you. But if you're willing to write some garbage, you'll discover diamonds among the word refuse.
• Plan your word count. Are you going to be able to write every single day in November? If so, you should be writing 1,667 words a day. However, if you are planning to take a day or two off for Thanksgiving, or if you'd like to spend more time with your family on the weekends, you will need to take that into account. Figure out now how many days you will be able to write and then divide 50,000 by that number. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy (as my child's kindergarten teacher would say).
• Plan for the unexpected. Your child gets ill. Your significant other takes you away to a secluded cabin for the weekend. Your brother wants you to move all of his furniture. These are things that may hinder your 50,000 words. Plan for these things now. Give yourself some leeway so that you are not scrambling to get your 50,000 words at 1o o'clock at night on November 30. That is stressful. I know. I did it last year.

So, that's how I suggest you start out. Get lots of sleep this weekend, because you won't get much in November. I'll be back next week with another tip. After I finish my 1,667 words for the day first, of course.

200th Blog Post Giveaway Extravaganza!

Woohoo! It's finally here! My 200th blog post and giveaway. I hope the sheer awesomeness of the giveaway will make you forgive me for making you wait since July for this post. Yes. The awesomeness will bring me forgiveness.

So, there are 3 giveaways. They are equal in their awesomeness and yet unique in their coolness.

1. Signed paperback copy of Mary Pearson's The Adoration of Jenna Fox; $10 Barnes and Noble gift card; and a nifty little Alice notebook made by moi.

2. Signed hardback copy of Bree Despain's The Dark Divine; $10 Bath and Body Works gift card; and a nifty little Alice notebook made by moi.

3. Signed hardback Copy of Jessica Day George's Princess of Glass; $10 Applebee's gift card; a nifty little Alice notebook made by moi.

I KNOW! You're about to faint from the awesomeness and coolness of these giveaways. But don't faint yet. Leave a comment first. That's all you have to do to win. Have you left a comment? Okay, you may now faint.

The contest will go until October 29. At midnight, I will pull names from my magic witch's hat and post who won the amazing giveaways!