Birthdays and prizes, oh my!

My birthday has been (in truly lovely fashion) and gone (too quickly) which means that I am now officially about, oh, eleven years older than I actually feel. It also means that it's time to announce the prizewinners of my little writing giveaway!

First, a few random notes:

1. I love that so many of you shared writing links. I look forward to checking those out over the next little while. And of course, sharing the links gave you an extra entry into the contest.
2. Some of you wanted to enter but realised that the Australian Writer's Marketplace might not be applicable to you (either you already had a copy or felt it wouldn't be useful to you in your home country). Rather than cutting you out of the competition altogether, I marked your entries with an asterisk and determined that if I drew an asterisked winner, I'd split the prize -- journal and pens for the first winner, and the Writer's Marketplace for a second winner to be drawn afterwards.
3. I explained all of this in a video which I recorded as I drew out the prize winners. It was all very exciting, but I have discovered something about myself today: videos of me are terrifying. Not only is there the whole ridiculous question of how to talk like an actual human being while talking to a screen, but there is also the gamut of horrendous realisations that video-making creates: "I kind of have a lisp? What? Surely not!" Also: "I knew my face was assymetrical, but really! This resembles a Picasso!" Needless to say, I am not posting the video I made. I am, however, taking my courage in both hands and sharing a tiny clip I filmed after the prize drawing. Asea requested a picture of the hat I used for the prize drawing, so I filmed that. It's pointless me even trying to express my insecurity about sharing a video (I believe I wailed at my mum, "But the internet is MEAN!"). Vloggers, are you only courageous because you are all beautiful funny people with cool accents? You have my respect.

Enough about that. Onto the winners...

The first name to be pulled from the hat is Joy, who sure enough has an asterisk next to her name. Congratulations, Joy! The sweet journal by Paper Boat Press, along with the Pilot Fineliner pens, are yours!

Since Joy already has a copy of the Australian Writer's Marketplace, I drew a second winner: Laura, of Life Is Beautiful! Congratulations, Laura! Email me your address (daniellecentral at gmail dot com) and I'll ship your awesome writing resource book off to you.

Peace out, babies. I promise the next giveaway will be for everyone, not just writers.

Etsylicious

My sister Lauren is having a pre-wedding sale on all the delicious handmade goodies over at her etsy store. There's 30% off everything, so check out the homecrafted niceness.