Monday, December 19, 2016

The Winner's of Susanna Leonard Hill's Holiday Contest

The winners have been chosen, check them out here. While I didn't make the cut, I did get an honorable mention under the Great Kid Appeal category.

Happy holidays everyone!

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Susanna Leonard Hill's 6th Annual Holiday Contest!!!!

UPDATE 12-12-16: I wasn't happy with my original story. I don't think any child would like it either. Of course at 2 am I had an idea on how to fix it, which I promptly forgot when I woke up in the morning. So here is the 3rd version below complete with a new title. I hope you enjoy it. 

Susanna Leonard Hill is back with another writing contest. The rules this time: Write a children’s holiday story using the basic format/concept of The Twelve Days Of Christmas!  The story may be poetry or prose, silly or serious or sweet, religious or not, based on Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever you celebrate, but is not to exceed 300 words.

This was a hard one for me. I ran it by my son who usually inspires my stories, but he hadn't heard the 12 Days of Christmas yet. So I had to come up with something myself. It weighs in at a hefty 300 words. For you reading pleasure I present to you, "My Favorite Christmas So Far"


My Favorite Christmas So Far
(300 words)

My favorite Christmas in my seven years so far was last Christmas when I got a Scrappy Steve action figure with swinging spaghetti arms. It was a rough twelve days of Christmas. It didn’t appear I was going to get him at all.

On the first day of Christmas I got a pair of socks. I still had socks I hadn’t worn from the previous Christmas.

The next ten days the presents alternated between underwear and socks. Except for day eight when I got a tooth brush and tooth paste.

It didn’t look good for Scrappy Steve on the morning of day twelve. I moped into the family room where a beautifully wrapped box the size of Scrappy Steve lay on the table.

I dashed to the table, grabbed the box, and shredded the wrapping paper faster than a guitarist playing a solo. It was a Scrappy Steve box but Scrappy Steve was missing. In his place was a note.

I pulled the note from the box, unfolded it and read it aloud, “You must save Scrappy Steve from the fish-breathed beast of fur!”

What is a fish-breathed beast of fur I wondered? My face lit up like a light bulb as the answer came to me, it was my cat Clark! 

I ran to the pantry where Clark’s bed was. Clark had Scrappy Steve in his grasp and batted him between his paws. I rescued Scrappy Steve and ran back into the living room. Steve’s swinging spaghetti arms flailed about like an inflatable wacky waving tube man.

I entered the room and saw my family smiling at me and I shouted, “Merry Christmas everyone!”

I look forward to getting Scrappy Steve’s arch nemesis this Christmas, Ridiculously Long-Necked Ron. Hopefully it won’t take all twelve days to get him.

Monday, December 5, 2016

Goodreads giveaway results

My giveaway ended yesterday with 949 people requesting 1 of 5 copies. Not many people added it as to read, but that's ok. Congratulations to the winners. YOur books will be in the mail by the end of the week.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Time to vote for the best October Pitch

It's time to vote for your favorite Would You read It Wednesday pitch. All the pitches are great as always. Of course mine is one of them. If you choose it, thank you. If not, that is fine too. =)

https://susannahill.com/2016/11/30/would-you-read-it-wednesday-234-armadillos-pillow-fight-pb-plus-the-october-pitch-pick/comment-page-1/#comment-42100

Monday, November 28, 2016

Goodreads Giveaway

Enter to win 1 of 5 copies of Meowy Christmas. Good luck!


Goodreads Book Giveaway

Meowy Christmas by Gregory E. Bray

Meowy Christmas

by Gregory E. Bray

Giveaway ends December 04, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter Giveaway

Monday, November 7, 2016

Halloweensie Contest Finalist

After reading 150 entries, Susanna has narrowed down the stories to the top 12. Mine wasn't in those top 12. But the stories that made it are extremely good. Check them out and vote for your favorite one: https://susannahill.com/2016/11/07/the-2016-halloweensie-contest-finalists/

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Entry for Susanna Leonard Hill's The 6th Annual Halloweensie contest

Once again Susanna Leonard Hill has started up her Halloweensie writing contest. This year's rules are as follows: Write a 100 word Halloween story appropriate for children (title not included in the 100 words), using the words spiderghost, and moon. My entry is below and comes in at a whopping 98 words. I hope you enjoy it.


The Night of the Ghost Spiders

“And the ghost spiders only come out on Halloween,” Polly continued in a spooky voice as they approached the old mansion. “With a full moon, their numbers double!”

Max scoffed at the story and strode towards the front door.

Max’s arm tickled. He looked and saw it covered in tiny ghost spiders. He screamed, dropped his candy bucket, and ran away.

Polly picked up a spider from the ground and examined it.

“Max come back! These are just the flowers of the mootickle tree.”


Polly shrugged, picked up Max’s bucket, and approached the house to trick or treat.

Check out the other great entries here!

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

The time has come to vote for your favorite story in the Would You Read It Wednesday Pitch contest. Lot's of great entries, one of which happens to be mine. =)

https://susannahill.com/2016/09/21/would-you-read-it-wednesday-226-madeleines-crowning-moment-pb-plus-the-june-and-july-pitch-picks/

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Would You Read It Wednesday

Susanna Leonard Hill does a lot of great work to help out aspiring author's. Today it is my turn to be helped. This is a story I've been working on since PiBoIdMo 2015 ended. The story is titled, "The Bath of Least Resistance" Take a look here and let me know; would you read it?

P.S. In the story about me, pronounced in the pancake part should be came out. Auto correct failed me again, and I failed my editing. =(

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Journey Into Blog - Writing Contest

A few weeks back, a friend told me about a contest that the Journey Into Blog was hosting.

The rules were the story had to be 4000 words or less and must include the words, "Journey Into" in the title. When I write normally, I usually have the title first. Trying to come up with a story that had to include certain words in the title was maddening.

It took me awhile to come up with an idea. When I finally had an idea come to fruition, I only had a few days to write the story before the deadline.

I know this needs some work. But I hope you will enjoy, "Journey Into Gopher Madness"

JOURNEY INTO GOPHER MADNESS
(1026 words)

The light refracted through the diamond casting a prism on the tree in front of Victor. It reminded him of the cover of his favorite album.

Victor lowered the diamond ring and surveyed his yard. Everything thing was perfect. Tonight was the night he would propose to his girlfriend, Marceline. He hoped she would say yes. Then they would have something else to celebrate besides the creation of his shrinking/enlarging ray.

The smell of enchiladas filled the air. Victor hoped they weren’t burning. He turned and rushed back towards the kitchen to check on them.

He bumped into the leg of a chair, stumbled and the ring flew out of his hand. He watched it soar into the air doing loop de loops like an old fashioned biplane.

He couldn’t react fast enough to catch it, but he kept a watchful eye to see where it would land.

The ring descended towards the ground. As Victor’s eyes tracked the ring, a gopher hole came into view.

Panic stricken, Victor did the only thing he could think of; he dove for the ring.

Everything moved in slow motion as Victor flew through the air. The ring appeared to stop above the ground and spin in place.

Victor’s hand slid under the ring. A feeling of relief came over him. He grasped the ring and pulled his hand to his face as he landed on the ground with a loud thud.

A surprised look came over his face as he opened his hand to see it was empty. How could this have happened? Confused, he looked past his hand into the gopher hole.

A feeling of dread came over him as he knew what he had to do. He rolled up his sleeve and reached into the gopher hole to retrieve the ring.

The cold metal of the ring touched the tip of his finger. He let out of sigh of relief. But the feeling of relief was short lived. The more he tried to grasp the ring, the further he pushed it into the hole.

Victor pulled his arm from the hole, stood up, raised a brow and smiled as an idea popped into his head. He ran into the house and came back out with his shrinking/enlarging ray.

He placed the ray in front of the gopher hole and stood on the opposite side with the remote in his hand.

He estimated the diameter of the circle to be approximately three inches. He did a quick calculation and set the shrinking size to the size of his favorite childhood toy, a twelve inch GI Joe action figure.

He glanced down into the hole and pressed the button.

A beam of blue light encompassed his body. The hole grew larger as his body grew smaller until he stood on the edge of a large hole the size of a small hot tub.

He cautiously entered the hole. It sloped at a forty five degree angle making it easy to ascend.

The hole was damp and smelled like fresh mud. He wished he would have been wearing shoes as he hated the feeling of mud between his toes.

He walked until it was too dark to see. He placed the remote in his pocket and retrieved his cell phone. He scrolled through the apps until he found his flashlight app and activated it.

The tunnel was illuminated with a pale white light. He held the phone in front of him and slowly moved his arm back and forth scanning for the ring, but saw no sign of the ring anywhere ahead of him.

Victor came to a fork in the tunnel and wondered which way he should go.

He pointed to the right tunnel and did an eeny, meeny, miny, moe coming to the best one which was the right tunnel.

The pungent smell of blue cheese filled his nostrils as he progressed down the right passage. A squeaking sound echoed increasing in volume the further he walked.

He rounded a corner where the smell was stronger and the noises louder. In front of him was a large gopher. It nudged the now tire sized ring with its nose.

The gopher looked up and made a high pitched guttural sound. Startled, Victor jumped back.

The gopher moved in close to Victor. He quivered with fear as it sniffed him from head to toe. It focused its sniffing on the front left pocket of his jeans.

Victor remembered he had a candy bar in his jeans. He slowly reached into his pocket to retrieve it. He unwrapped it and placed it in front of the gopher’s nose. The gopher sniffed it intently.

With a swift move, Victor threw the candy bar into the darkness past the gopher. The gopher turned and ran after it.

Victor sprinted towards the ring. He bent down and grabbed it with both hands, dropping his phone in the process. The ring was much heavier than he thought it would be. He stood up, turned and ran as fast as he could towards the entrance of the tunnel.

In the pitch black he could hear the gopher galloping behind him. Its steps echoed around him along with its high pitched grunting.

The light from the entrance filled the tunnel ahead of him. He clutched the ring in his right hand and grabbed the remote from his pocket with his left hand.

He held the remote in front of him and clicked the button as fast as he could.

The top of his ray machine came into view through the exit. A look of satisfaction fell upon his face.

He felt the spikey fur of the gophers head ram into his back. It sent him flying into the air and out of the tunnel.

The hum of his ray activating was a welcomed sound. The blue light once again encompassed him returning him to regular size.

He landed on his back and let out a loud breath. He opened his eyes to see Marceline standing above him with a quizzical look.

Victor held his hand towards her, presented the ring and asked, “Will you marry me?”

THE END

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

50 Precious Words Writing Contest

Taking a break from writing to enter this fun contest put on by Vivian Kirkfield. The rules are as follows:

  1. Write a story appropriate for kids ages 12 or under, using only 50 words…they can all be different words, or you can use some of them over and over…just as long as the total word count for the story is 50 or less.
  2. It can be prose, rhyme, free verse, silly or serious…whatever works for you.
  3. Title is not included in the word count.
  4. No illustration notes please.
I hope you enjoy my entry tentatively titled, "That's a Big Mouse!"

That's a Big Mouse!
(46 words)

This was the biggest mouse Henry had ever seen in his kitty life.
His rump wiggled and jiggled waiting to pounce.
He flew into the air and landed on his target.
“OUCH!” a familiar voice screamed.
It was his mother’s foot in a plush mouse slipper.

Monday, February 22, 2016

The First Annual Valentiny Contest FINALISTS!!!

Well I didn't make the list of finalists again. But I had fun trying. =) Congratulations to the finalists. Please click on the following link and vote for your favorite story: http://susannahill.com/2016/02/22/the-first-annual-valentiny-contest-finalists/

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Susanna Leonard Hills 1st Annual Valentiny Writing Contest



Hello everyone,

Below is my entry for Susanna Leonard Hills 1st Annual Valentiny Writing Contest. The story can be up to 214 words and someone needs to be grumpy.

When my son gets angry he says, "I'm grumpys!" and storms off. So this is loosely based on him. It came in at a whopping 109 words.

And now for your consideration, "I'm Grumpys!"

I’m Grumpys!
Sally woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
She rolled over quickly and bonked her head.
“I’m grumpys!”
She sprang out of bed and landed on a toy.
So far this Valentine’s Day was not full of joy.
“I’m grumpys!”
She walked to the kitchen and the table was bare.
She searched for her mother but found her nowhere.
“I’m grumpys!”
Her mother came in with a big white box.
Inside was her favorite breakfast, heart shaped bagels with cream cheese and no lox.
“I’m not so grupmys.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” her mom said with a smile.
Sally had the best day she’d had in a while.