Holiday Hop Giveaway WINNERS!

Okay! 

The numbers have been crunched. Random.org has been consulted...and we have some winners!

Giveaway #1: Friendship on Fire by Danielle Weiler, paperback and .PDF ebook

The winner of the paperback book is

Cayce!

Congratulations, I'll be in contact soon to snag your postal address!

The winner of the .PDF eBook is:

Denise Z.!

I'm gonna skip ahead now to Giveaway #4 - a professional edit of the first 25 pages of your manuscript (if you have one, of course)!

The winner of the free edit is...

Teressa Oliver!

I look forward to helping you with it!

Now. 

Why did I skip over Giveaways #2, the Sarah Billington and Giveaway #3, the Edwina Ray ebook packs? 

Because it's Christmas, I'm in a giving mood. So the winner of the Sarah Billington and Edwina Ray ebook packs are....

EVERYBODY! 

All entrants in the Holiday Hop, if you wanted prize pack 2 or 3 or BOTH - it's yours! I hope you enjoy them.

Email me with the subject "I'm a winner of the (Sarah Billington/Edwina Ray) ebook pack!" with the name you entered with and I'll send you a Smashwords.com coupon code so that you can download the ebooks in the ereading format of your choice.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. And good luck to ALL my winners, it's not over yet! You're in the draw to win a Kindle Fire!

Sparkly and awesome: The Kindle Fire

Love Sairz

The Anticipation...winners being drawn!

Bonjour lovely ones!

How was your Christmas? I am still in the place of four legged friends, lots of sleep and patchy internet access! Where is that, you ask? My parents house by the beach!

There was the Christmas Day lurgy, and my sister's trip to the emergency room on Boxing Day...but all in all a great holiday! Nothing a cuddle with a dog can't fix. Or crutches.

I loved reading all your entries to the blog hop competition, it's a shame it's over, isn't it?

I shall do some calculating while twirling my moustache and who entered which competition and within hours (or longer depending on internet access) the WINNAHS AND CHAMPEENS will be announced!

All winners are also entered into the Holiday Hop GRAND PRIZE competition for a Kindle Fire!

I want in on that one, myself.

Stay tuned!

Sairz

Holiday Hop: GIVEAWAYS GALORE! (Including a Kindle Fire!)

Merry Christmas savvy readers!

There's something tres humongo going on in the book blogosphere and I'm a part of it!

Prizes...prizes everywhere! Including the grand prize of a Kindle Fire! So seriously. Check out all the awesome and snag yourself some freebies!

From the official Holiday Hop Blog itself...THE DEETS:

The hop runs from December 15th to December 25th.  Winners will be chosen after the contest has ended, and the results will be posted on their websites/blogs between December 26th-December 31st.

The grand prize winner of the KINDLE FIRE will be chosen on December 31st and announced on January 1, 2012 on this site.

HOW IT WORKS

New to blog hopping? No problem!

To begin, go to the HOLIDAY HOP page in the tab above.  You can blog hop in any order you choose.  Start with an author and then work your way through everyone.  Click on the NAME of the author to be directed to their blog site.  Once there, check out their contest and enter to win.  Yes...it's that easy! 

After you finish with one site, return here and click your way through the rest of the author sites. 

There are some amazing prizes this year including: holiday mystery bag, signed books, gift cards, dog treat bag, jewelry, iTunes gift cards, etc.  To see a sample of our wonderful prizes, click HERE. 

Ready to get going?  Click HERE.  

WHAT AM I OFFERING?

So glad you asked!


I have 4 prizes available, open internationally!

1) Friendship on Fire by Danielle Weiler paperback or PDF ebook!

2) Sarah Billington young adult ebook pack, in your choice of ebook format! (Pack includes Life Was Cool Until You Got Popular, and short stories The Death & Life of Rocky the Crab and Life Was Easier When Boys Were Stupid)

3) Edwina Ray thriller ebook pack! (Pack includes short stories I, Zombie and best seller, The Runaway)

4) Writers this one's for you! I will do a thorough edit of the first 25 pages of your manuscript for free! (Some of you may not know - I AM actually an editor too. I'm not just some random who'll give her opinions on your baby. I know what I'm doing.)

HOW TO WIN

Just leave a comment below with the number (or numbers) of the prize packs you wish to win, and tell me what BIG present do you hope Santa brings this year, but you don't ACTUALLY think he will? 


Do you really want a motorcycle? That Tiffany necklace you saw? How about the kids waking up at 9am instead of 5am on Christmas Day?

I'm looking forward to your answers (but winners will be chosen at random).

What are you waiting for? Go Blog Hop! There's heaps more prizes out there!

And remember - you don't need an ereading device to read ebooks! Think I'm crazy? Click the link at the top and learn all about it!

Have fun hopping!

Sairz

Publishing Christmas Shindigs that White People Like

I went to a Publishing Christmas Party on Monday night and it was oh-so chic.

I didn't know it before going but there was a theme for the night, of Mad Men, the TV show which I just happen to have gotten a little obsessed with at the moment (I'm up to season three!) and there were oodles of suits and beautiful sixties styles to be seen. There were also people in jeans, like me. But I was wearing a floral top so it was okay.

I had a chat with and spied across the room fantabulous people such as Steph Bowe, Lili Wilkinson, Gabrielle Wang, Corinne King and Cath Crowley and there were lots of other publishing folk there who I don't necessarily know by sight.

It was lots of fun and the Swing Dance performance by some dancers from Swing Patrol (which just happens to be the school I go to. You know. When I go) was an awesome touch. And then whoever wanted to had a quick lesson in the super-hot Bella Bar which consisted of lots of jiggling around on the spot and sometimes dancing as a girl and sometimes dancing as a guy but just keeping on with the dancing.

Those who know me know that I have a soft spot for swing and this feels like the perfect opportunity to show you all one of my favourite routines from the 2009 Lindy at the Light charity performances in Leeds, UK that I was a part of, though I wasn't in this performance. But I totes thought they were awesome. I got to see this (and a bunch of other routines including the one I was in) once an hour for five hours.

It was winter. And SNOWING in England. This year I have heat and plethora of bugs to contend with.

Anyhoo - enjoy!

My VERY White Christmas and crowded New Year

I'm tuckered out.

Haven't had much computer access since I left for Christmas in the Scottish Highlands.

What had been going on before I left...oh yeah, there had been a teeny weeny bit of snow in Leeds and I was all "OH MY GOD IT'S SNOWING THIS IS FRICKIN AWESOME".

Aw bless. I knew NOTHING about snow then. See, in the Highlands in

Scotland? Tons and tons of snow.

On the first day of my trip we went for a walk in a park.

You see what I'm sayin'? It was like Narnia. You know, in the bit when everyone's all depressed and the evil Witch is all power trippin'. It was like Narnia but happier.

So Christmas was pretty awesome and amazingly beautiful and we had Scottish men in kilts serving us at Christmas dinner so really, what more could you want?

The only bummer about snow - okay thinking about it I've learnt there are a couple of bummers about snow, in that it's hard to walk on, I'm a champion at NOT seeing black ice and falling over on it and snow's FRICKIN cold! - but the bummer I'm talking about is that you can't actually SEE any of the countryside. You can see the snow covered countryside. So I don't know what Scotland usually looks like, but I know what it looks like when in shades of white. And it sure is pretty.

My friend Bec arrived in Edinburgh to party with me at the biggest Street Party in the world, which is Hogmanay (New Years) in Edinburgh and it was a lot of fun...to start with.

Yes. There were LOTS of people, but also pockets of space and we were quite happily watching one of the free bands in the street party, having a good time. But then more and more people came. And most of them were drunk. And they were very pushy. As in they would walk and shove you aside. And the crowd got so big that there wasn't actually anywhere for you to be shoved to.

And this photo is from when the crowd was manageable.

I was nearly trampled at one point, standing beside the bit of a trailer that connects to a car, I was pushed by the crowd from behind so that my legs got caught on the trailer, the guy standing on the other side of the trailer was holding my top half up, screaming at the crowd to stop pushing. But they didn't. I was worried I was going to break one of my legs cos it was getting bent in a direction it really shouldn't. But I managed to get it free and stand up again. That was when the police arrived to ask if I was okay. I am - I'm fine. I just have some doozies of bruises on my legs. It's been over a week and they're still purple. That's probably bad, right?

So um, Hogmanay was great before that little hiccup.

I do really like Edinburgh and Scotland though. Must see it in the summer sometime.

Snow, snow, glorious snow!

Christmas in Australia is hot. Santa doesn't wear the big suit, he and the elves wear this:

This year however, I am in England. In 2 days I'm heading to the Scottish Highlands for Christmas, and Christmas here is very very different to the really really hot Aussie one.

For instance, this is what is outside my window right now:

Okay so that was actually 2 days ago, there's a bit more now. But you get my point? Christmas is a very different experience here! I've never experienced the snow before so this is really really exciting. The world is so pretty when everything's white.

Though I have experienced a couple of downsides to this whole snow thing. Well, the one-two centimetres of snow that we've got going on here. For instance, it makes buses run late. Very late. And under the thin layer of snow? There's a layer of ICE. And under the ice? Still cement. So yeah, my knees met the ice-cement, they're on intimate terms considering they were making out yesterday.

But it's been interesting, seeing a half-frozen over fountain, stepping on frozen puddles and feeling them crack, seeing frozen tyre marks in mud, having little bits of cold white stuff settle on your shoulders and your hair, but it's not big enough to be caught in your hand. There's not enough snow here for angels or snow men but we'll see.

I'm looking forward to Scotland, maybe there won't be so much in Edinburgh, but in the Highlands over Christmas - my first white Christmas! - there's sure to be heaps and heaps of snow. Where the ice is way down underneath lots of fluffy snow that I'm not going to fall over on.

A cold Christmas is a really weird experience, I have to say. It's supposed to be hot. We're not supposed to be wearing thermals, jumpers, coats, scarves, gloves and hats. We're supposed to be wearing singlets and thongs. (To you Americans reading this let me clarify - singlets = tank tops, thongs = flip flops. I felt that needed clarifying. Especially the thongs part)

So yeah. SNOW!

Love,

Me.