Wakela’s World

I have found a few sites that have some really great contests going all the time. Actually, I only found two of them. My sister found the others.

AuthorIsland - If you love books as much as I do, then winning free books is awesome! I have entered quite a few contests over there. I actually one an autographed book. Not only did they send the book, but they also added in a bunch of extras with it. The extras included bookmarks (some of them autographed), magnets (also some of them autographed), a CD with sample chapters, and some flyers (some autographed). The extra stuff was from a wide range of authors too. Now this site has contests from pretty much every genre of book. I enter all of them each month. Even if it isn’t something that I would normally read, I figured that it might end up being something interesting anyway. Each contest is sponsored by a different author. However, each author chooses what they want to give away. Some of them give gift baskets, some are just books, and some get really creative. Contests get added on a regular basis. So I highly suggest swinging by there at least once a week.

Bella Online - My sister found this one. These contests can be entered on a daily basis. I usually don’t have the patience to do that every day. I would say that there are probably about 20 contests on a regular basis. The prizes range from gift certificates to actual items. None of these contests are concerning books. However, you can get some nice stuff. There are paintings, beauty supplies, jewelry, furniture, and much more.

The Romance Studio - This is the second one I found. This one has two different places to look for contests. The first one is The Book-A-Day Giveaway. There you enter your information and you are signed up to win one of several books. You do not usually get to choose the book nor the format. However, some publishers offer up a “winner’s choice” and that means you get to pick if you win. The other option for entering contests on their site is through the Drawings & Giveaways section. There are multiple contests to enter through that page. Each one is actually done by the author themselves on their respective sites, but it helps you to locate the contests.

WriterSpace - There are literally hundreds of contests listed on this site. It takes forever to get through all of the contests, but it is well worth it. You get to find out about a bunch of great books that you might not find out about otherwise.

I am currently participating in a few swaps over at Swap-Bot. One of them is a photo scavenger hunt. Here are my submissions for this swap.

1. Something Red

This was taken on my trip to Key West a few months ago.

2. Food

This is the famous Sloppy Joe’s Restaurant down in Key West.

3. Child

My great niece Abigail getting her first wash up after being born. She looks so peaceful there.

4. Nature

This sunset was taken from my front porch after hurricane Wilma had hit.

5. Animal

Our border collie, Max.

6. Coffee/Tea

This is our tea/coffee cabinet. It is filled with nothing but different varieties of tea, coffee, and hot chocolate. I love the hot chocolate the best.

I got me award for placing in the 2nd Annual Spicy Cauldron Awards. I had entered a Halloween writing contest. I have never won anything for my writing before. Yes, I only got 2nd place, and it is only a web competition, but still. I really does mean alot to me.

If you would like to see the entry go here. It was a short story that I wrote off the cuff.

I just found out about a great contest going on. I tend to have really dry skin due to my thyroid condition and some of the meds I am on. Sometimes, it gets to the point that I don’t like the feel of my own skin.

There is a new lotion out called Skin MD that is supposed to help with dry skin.

Laura Williams currently has a give away going on over at her blog for a bottle of the lotion.

Stop by her blog and check it out.

Smoky green haze filled the air. She was at it again. Syltenia was convinced that there was a secret faerie world. She was convinced that if she found the right potion, she would be able to access it. All of the other witches were tired of her incessant stirring up crazy concoctions in her cauldron.

Her cauldron had been in her family for centuries. Her great grandmother swore that she had mistakenly mixed up a batch of potion that granted her entrance to the faerie realm. The rest of the community thought she had gone mad. No one believed in faeries anymore. It was believed that the faeries had became extinct during the Great Witch-Dragon wars over a millenium ago.

So here Syltenia sat, stirring away at the cauldron day in and day out. She was practically shunned by the rest of the community. The aweful smells and horrible smoke was always eminating from her little cottage.

Yet, she knew that this cauldron would once again be the birth of the Faerie Land potion. Each day, should would experiment with this and that. She would through in a little eye of newt or maybe a little lizard liver. Each time, it would be just a little different. She carefully measured. She faithfully wrote every thing down. Her cauldron was always stewing up some foul mess.

Finally, Samhain was upon the land again. It was a magickal time. It was on this day, that she stumbled on the right combination as her great grandmother had done years ago. Finally she would prove to everyone that the faeries were no longer extinct.

That day, she felt renewed with confidence. Her hands snatched bottles off of her shelf with very little thought. She stirred the potion with care all the while humming a little tune that she couldn’t get out of her head.

She sampled a little of the concotion out of her cauldron. Her eyes started to go in and out of focus. She felt like the room was spinning. Finally when things settled back down again, she was shocked to see a tiny little faerie sitting on the edge of her cauldron. It was the most beautiful creature that she had ever laid eyes upon.

The faerie let her know that since she had been trying all of these years without giving up, they had decided to help her out. They whispered in her ear the ingredients. They hummed the song in her ear. They wanted to make themselves known to her.

The faeries lived all around her. They were everywhere. However, they had been hidden from everyone’s view.

The faeries felt that it was time to show themselves again. So they told her to take her potion and bake up some pumpkin bread with it. There was to be a big festival tonight ending in a huge samhain ritual.

That afternoon while everyone was setting up for the festival, she carefully concealed the pumpkin bread that was laid out for the festival. In its place, she put out the faerie pumpkin bread that she lovingly baked. She then whisked herself home to prepare herself for tonights festivities.

That evening, the party had started. People were out in the streets dressed in their holiday best. They were dancing to the music. They were eating the food that was laid out. They were chatting away having a merry time. It started to happen so suddenly. People started complaining of being dizzy. Once the dizziness stopped, the gasps of amazement started. It wasn’t until everyone had eaten from the faerie pumpkin bread that the true festival started.

The faeries had their own spread of food set out. They had their own music playing. The entire witch community was now able to see them. They all now believed because one witch and her cauldron refused to give up.

This story was written for Halloween can inspire your cauldron.

How many of you like reading? How many more like scavenger hunts?

I found a great combination. Be prepared to spend hours working on this one though.

Be prepared to go searching through about 60 sites to find the image. Don’t be fooled. There were some sites that I found the big image that I have to the left. That is not the one you need to find. The one you need is the small one on that they have an example of on the main contest page. After about halfway through, I realized that some authors had both. So of course, I had to go back and start again just to make sure I got the correct ones.

There are tons of prizes to win. You don’t get to choose which prizes you get.

I have found out about a bunch of great writers whose books I am going to be searching for.

There are some whose web pages leave me cringing. They were so cumbersome to look through. Some even had a different look to each page. Others opened each page into another window. Its very frustrating.