Saturday, April 30, 2011

Celebrate!


"Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the Music!"
Okay. If you now have a Three Dog Night earworm, you've just dated yourself. No worries. I understand. For all you "young'uns" here's a classic clip. (Though I do prefer Eli's Coming  and Old Fashioned Love Song.) You could do worse than classic Three Dog Night. ; )





~~The reason for all the hoopla is my Celebration Blogfest honoring my 100th post and 200th follower (Thanks, Rachna at Rachna's Scriptorium) I started blogging June 2, 2009. It seems like only yesterday. I posted mostly about incidental things like the new puppies (They were 2 on April 7), neat music clips, movies and the flowers, but now I concentrate on writing. Of course, the cute doggies get included still. ; )

~~It's only been since January that I really learned how to use the blog to network and create a platform for my writing. I was reading my buddy, Deniz's blog The Girdle of Melian when she posted a link to a publication blog at Denise's L'Aussie Writing. I started regularly reading Denise's posts and she mentioned a No Fear Blogfest at Dom's Writes of Passage. I entered on a lark and was a finalist. And a blogfester was born. The next link that intrigued me was platform builder extraordinaire Rachael Harrie's Rach Writes and her Second Crusade to Build Writers Platforms. I was hooked. The rest is history. In January, The Shade of the Cherry Tree had 18 followers and look at it now!

~~To celebrate, I'm going to put the names of all the commenters to this post in a drawing for three prizes. The first winner gets to pick from the four prizes listed below. The second and third get fewer and fewer to choose from. But even then, winner number 3 gets two choices--thanks to John, my darling husband, who couldn't stand for the last one to get just the left over gift. If you post a link to In the Shade of the Cherry Tree and tell me in the comments, I'll put your name in the drawing twice. I'll be using random.org to choose. Here are the prizes:

Stephen King's On Writing Amazon link
Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird Amazon link
Steven Pressfield's The War of Art Amazon link
Signed first edition copies of my two devotionals--An Easter Walk and A Christmas Walk (Check these out with the links on the left side)

~~I'll notify the winners by announcing it here, emailing if you have left an email in the comment, and commenting on your latest blog post. Whatever the method, I hope you enjoy the prizes. When you are notified of your win, email me your address. My email is a the bottom of the blog.

~~Good luck, everyone! And Thanks a Million for helping me build my blog and remember to
CELEBRATE!