It's Another Giveaway!

Thanks everyone for entering, this giveaway is now Closed.

And the winner is.... Carolyn!!!  Congratulations!

A few weeks ago I got a lovely little package in the mail. It was the fourth season of "30 Rock" that I had gotten as a Klout Perk. It seemed pretty serendipitous at the time since I had also just started reading "Bossypants" and was feeling pretty dang excited about being surrounded by so much Tina Fey greatness.

Then I remembered something. I never watch dvds. I have a shelf full of them, I just never seem to watch any of them. I honestly don't know why. I'll get really excited about a favorite movie being on tv, even if I have the dvd and could watch it anytime I wanted to. I realize this makes me weird, or maybe just too lazy to put the dvd in the player? I don't know, but the point is the awesomeness that is "30 Rock" deserves to be appreciated in a way that sitting unwatched on my shelf would not provide.

And so I have decided to offer up this little gem as a giveaway to one of you lucky readers!

This giveaway is open to all Averly Gets Creative subscribers. Please take a moment and subscribe using Google Friend Connect or Bloglovin before entering the giveaway. Thanks!

To enter all you need to do is  leave a comment telling me what your favorite tv show is. Please make sure there is a way to contact you if you win!

For additional entries, please do the following (and leave a separate comment for each entry):

• Follow me on Twitter
• Tweet about this giveaway. Be sure to mention @AverlyCreatives in the tweet and link back to this post. 
• Share this giveaway on Facebook, Tumblr or your own blog. (Make sure to leave a link so I can come visit you!)

This giveaway will end Monday, November 28th at 10PM Central Time.

Winner will be randomly chosen and announced shortly after.

I was given a free product or sample because I'm a Klout influencer. I was under no obligation to receive the sample or talk about this company. I get no additional benefits for talking about the product or company.

I Totally Made... er ... Wrote That....It's Nanowrimo Time!!

Have you heard of Nanowrimo yet? In English that means National Novel Writing Month, and that month happens to be November! The goal is to write an entire novel of at least 50,000 words in one month... yep that sounds completely crazy, and it is, but it's also a lot of fun. I found out about this two years ago and have done it the last two Novembers, but I have yet to win. The first year I found out about it right before it started and gave up pretty early on. Last year I was doing okay, I got to about 30,000 words, but then life got all crazy and I just didn't have time to finish. This will be my year though! Actually I hadn't even thought about it until a couple of days ago, but it's sucked me in again, and this time I'm determined to win.

They've already explained the whole thing on their website a lot better than I ever could:

What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2010, we had over 200,000 participants. More than 30,000 of them crossed the 50K finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.

Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To give yourself permission to write without obsessing over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To stop being one of those people who say, “I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” and become one of those people who can say, “Oh, a novel? It’s such a funny story–I’ve written three.”

When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins 12:00:01 November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at 11:59:59. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

This is a completely free, fun way to challenge yourself. If you find this intriguing at all you should definitely check out the website, there's a bunch of forums, videos, pep talks etc. You can also check out the calender for your region to see where the write-ins are if you want to get together with other wrimos.

Let me know if you decide to take on the challenge, I'd love to hear how your month goes.

Did You Get Your Halloween On?

I can't believe Halloween is already over! Did you have a good one?

Apparently painting and carving pumpkins is serious business that takes a lot of concentration.

A certain little munchkin refused to sit down so we could get a nice picture of the kids with the pumpkins.

I still have no idea who is Riley is, someone from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, I guess. And Miss Ava was going to be a puppy until we stopped at the store to get Riley's costume and she saw Elmo up on the wall. She didn't seem to care that Elmo only came in size 12-18 months, she was going to be "Mo" and that was that. Oh well, they still look pretty darn cute!

Did you go trick-or-treating this year, or hand out candy, or just hide in your home with the lights turned off?