2012
Well, the month of March is officially over now, and we have all either completed our chapter books or or further along in writing them than we were at the beginning of March. For those of you who didn't get the chance to read yesterday's post, I have given an extension to the challenge, only because this is the first year of the challenge. Everyone who hasn't quite completed their chapter book now has one extra week to do so. The extra week will not be given in future challenges, only this year's challenge.
For a while, I thought I was going to need the extension to complete my chapter book, but I managed to finish my chapter book yesterday. It's only a rough draft. It's 11 chapters and around 10,000 words long. I think, as I edit it, it might grow a bit as I can think of a few things that I meant to add into the story and forgot about while writing it. When I say it is a rough draft, I mean it is a VERY rough draft and it is going to need some serious and extensive editing before it is ready for the next stage of critiquing.
How did everyone else do? I really want to know, so please let me know in the comments. Don't worry if you didn't finish as you still have the extra week to try and complete your manuscript.
You might ask why I am giving an extra week when the challenge is self-monitored anyway. The reason is that I will be sending out winner magnets to everyone who completed the challenge on time, and I want to make sure everyone has the chance to complete the challenge. Naturally, I need mailing addresses in order to send the magnets out, so if you have completed the challenge (and you are officially signed up to the challenge), then let me know where to send your winner magnet. Private message me through Facebook or send me an e-mail through the "contact me" link in the sidebar.
Using the random number generator at Random.org, I now have a winner to announce for last week's prize of the Chapter Book Challenge 2012 official mug.
The winner is Alison K Hertz! Alison, I need a mailing address to send your prize to you.
I have a surprise though. One person was remarkably helpful and active (and very positive) in the Facebook group. Louise Nottingham has also won a Chapter Book Challenge 2012 official mug for her helpfulness and for being so active in the group. (Melissa Gijsbers Khalinsky, you were a close second behind her, so you will have tiny little surprise in the mail to you as a thank you.)
The point of the Chapter Book Challenge is to help inspire us as authors and writers, to give us the additional help of a community who are working on a similar form of book and to give us all the kick up the backside that we need to keep us writing. We have all been learning through this (I hope), and I plan on continuing to learn about the process of writing chapter books and to share what I've learned. The official challenge is over until March 2013, but that doesn't mean that I will just neglect this blog or the Facebook group. The group will be staying open, and I will continue looking for published chapter book authors and agents and publishers of chapter books to guest post here and share some of their knowledge with us.
We are all in this writing business together, so the more we help one another, the more we learn and grow in our own writing.
(I will post another update post next week to see what the final tally is for participants.)