Thanks for participating in the first ever Ask Libba event. That was fun, and you really put me through a workout. Whew. The polls are now closed and I have to stop taking questions for now. But I’ll do another one of those in a few months, because you might once again want to know about my favorite pair of socks or which toothpaste I use or whether I would call 911 if someone jumped off a building. (Thanks for the laughs. Not that it’s funny when people jump off buildings. I’m not saying that. I’m just…oh, never mind.)

There are two questions I hope to tackle in later blog posts. One, which I was asked a lot, is: How did you start writing? That has an interesting story behind it, and I’ll expound on that later. The other was: Do you believe in God? If not, why? Heavy and not easily answered. I’ll get to that one, too.

But for now, IT’S TIME FOR A CONTEST! Yippee Skippee! Here’s the dealio: I am currently writing a vampire short story for an anthology. I know! Vampires–it’s never been done before! We are really on the cusp of something new and exciting here, I think, peeps. I mean, sure, there’s that obscure Twilight book, but honestly, who’s read that, right? Anyhoo, it’s a cool anthology with people like Holly Black and Cassandra Clare and Cecil Castellucci and yours truly. I am having a lot of fun writing my little rock-n-roll vampire story. But I have a problem: I can’t seem to come up with a name for my main character or any of the characters really. Nothing that’s sticking. Nothing that feels right. Quel tragique! So why not offer you guys the chance to be characters in my story?

Okay. Here’s how it breaks down.

DA RULES
1. You must create something inspired by The Gemma Doyle trilogy. This can be anything you like: Art. Movie trailers. Parodies. Dramatic reenactment. Musical or song. You can do a fanmix of songs inspired by the books. Icons, banners, wallpaper, buttons, postcards. A vlog talking about the books. Photography. Get creative. Go crazy. Have fun.

2. You must post the entry in a place where it can be publicly viewed: DeviantArt. Amazon. Booksense. iTunes. Flickr or Photobucket. YouTube. You know, the usual public viewing suspects. Posting it on your blog doesn’t count. Must be public.

3. You must post to the link on my LJ ON THIS BLOG ENTRY ONLY. got it? THIS BLOG ENTRY ONLY. That way we’ve got a central locale. If you post it elsewhere, it will be disqualified. All together now: POST ONLY ON THIS BLOG ENTRY RIGHT HERE.

4. The contest will end on Friday, February 7th. I will choose the winners pretty promptly (since this story is past due…) and announce them the following week. All winners will, of course, get signed copies of the books when they are available down the road. But also, you’ll have a walk-on role in a vampire short story. How cool is that?

5. There are five female characters and four male characters. So, guys, it’s not just for the ladies. Suh-weet.

6. For this contest, I’m borrowing–okay, stealing egregiously–from the brilliant Cassandra Clare who offered up a contest for ARCs for her third book. If you haven’t read her Mortal Instruments trilogy, you must. It is totally addictive. Here is a link to her contest winners:http://cassandraclare.livejournal.com/27973.html. I’ll wait while you go look. *hums* “feelings…nothing more than…feelings…” Oh, you’re back. Great. Whaddya think? Pretty awesome, right? Those guys did some fine, fine stuff. I am sure you will do wondrous, hilarious, beautiful, creative, awesome things. Or, as Jack Black says, “full of bodaciousness.”

Is that it? I think that’s it. Okay. I’m off to my drum lesson. I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with since you always manage to amaze me. Happy creating!

***some of you have asked if fanfiction is okay. I’m say no to fanfic as a category. I don’t have time to read them and also, I’ve stated my position on not reading fanfic of my own work. (However, I support fanfic and think you should write it to your heart’s content. But it’s not a category for this contest.) Okay. That’s it. Carry on.

*Edit 2/6/09* Okay, so I said entries done by midnight Friday the 7th, but we can all look at our calendars and see I got confused, because it’s the 6th. So I am giving you until tomorrow, SATURDAY THE 7TH at midnight to get those entries in. And PLEASE make sure your links are solid. I noticed some aren’t, um, linky. Okay. Very psyched to see them all. Go!