A Crammed Announcement

Hello guys!

I've had like four different topics planned for this post, so we're gonna have to do some shuffling. Here's how its gonna go, alright? In this post you will get:

A happy little Easter update.

A gigantic announcement of epic proportions.

A smaller announcement that is nonetheless important.

Then next week you will get the Spring Cleaning tag post that Skye tagged me in a few weeks back. Ok?

Moving on.

For Easter we went to church, and got to spend time with friends that were in town from West Virginia, and then spent the rest of the day at my parents' house.

I'm convinced Henry is the only one in the family capable of taking a good picture.

Once we got home from church though, it was time for casual, and nothing screams "ornery little boy" like a pirate shirt and a Mohawk, so here he is, rocking it.

Now, on to the really big super amazing announcement.

Remember the Rooglewood Press writing contest I entered a few months back, with a Snow White retelling?

Well. We got the results in.

And since I'm dramatic, and kinda want to keep you guys in suspense as much as Anne Elisabeth Stengl kept us in, I'll drag this out a little.

Anne said there was somewhere around 156 entries this year, which was intimidating as all get out.

She hosted a facebook announcement party for us on Saturday and one by one revealed the honorable mentions, contestants with perfect feedback scores, and finalists.

There were twelve honorable mentions. In this contest the honorable mentions were also eligible to potentially win. So when I didn't see my name on the list I was getting a little nervous. Was that a really good, or really bad thing?

There were four perfect scores. I wasn't one of them. Not that I ever even imagined that I would be. I knew better than that.

Then came the finalists.

There were 28 of them.

My friend's name was on there, and I flipped. I won't get too much into that, because I'm sure she'll write her own post about it, and I don't want to steal her glory.

I was on the phone with Jarod, excitedly telling him that she was a finalist, and then abruptly hanging up on him so I could hear my facebook page update better.

Then it happened.

My name came up.

I was a finalist.

I called Jarod back, but he didn't answer, and I left a long hysterical voicemail that he never did listen to, but I repeated it word for word when he called me back.

Somehow he didn't share my enthusiasm or surprise. He said, in the most nonchalant voice known to mankind, "well, I figured you guys would win. I read the first two pages. It was good."

I love his undying confidence in me, but at that point I did not share it.

Next up Anne decided to post the first line of each winning story, and the winners could reveal themselves if they wanted, or she would after five minutes.

This happened.

By this time, Jarod was home. I looked up at him, my heart completely stopped in my chest, and I said in the most pathetic, quiet voice ever "that's my line."

It only took about three seconds for the floodgates to open and all my hysteric laughing and screaming to come gushing out, but the first response was classic, blunt Maddie.

This is what Anne Elisabeth (I guess I should mention, she hosted the contest and is an owner of Rooglewood Press) had to say about the story once the full announcement was made.

My sister Emily read it and texted me saying "I love how it says 'that's right...Maddie Morrow wrote a vampire story'. Because you've never touched vampires before until now. Like they knew it wasn't your exact forte."

And truer words have never been texted to me.

But you know what? I don't care. Because this. Right here.

My name on a book cover!

You'll also notice that I'm not alone up there. There's another celebrity there that you guys should be familiar with, and you should totally check out her blog (I linked to her up there ^), because she had a Snow White themed party and it was gorgeous.

Now starts the process of getting together a bio, author photo, editing, revising, and all the wonderful stuff that goes along with being an author.

I am so excited.

Now on to the less fantastic but important announcement.

Part of the prep work for this book releasing in December is giving Anne our author websites, so this blog is gonna get revamped. As you might have noticed, I changed the background to one of my original photos, and tweaked a few things layout wise, a well as changed the title.

For now the domain name will stay the same, but by next week's post I plan to have it changed, so be sure you save it. The new website url will be:

www.maddie-morrow.blogspot.com

That link will not work currently, but next week I'll finalize it. I just wanted to give you all a heads up so you could save it that way you're not searching the wide web for a domain that no longer exists.

I don't know what teenage me was thinking when she decided on such a long domain in the first place.

This one is much more concise.

If you are subscribed on Blogger, or by email, you should still get updates automatically, it will just be under the updated name now.

So there you have it! That's what I did over the weekend.

What about you? How was your Easter? Did anything spectacular happen?

Tell me all about it!