Jeri Smith-Ready: YA CRUSH TOURNEY ROUND 2!! (NOW IN ALL CAPS!)

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

YA CRUSH TOURNEY ROUND 2!! (NOW IN ALL CAPS!)

Tonight’s the night! I can tell from Twitter that you guys are PUMPED. I admit, I’m nervous, but it’s the kind of nerves I’d get as a teen before Prom, or before going onstage. That this-will-be-AWESOME feeling.

Of course, voting for Zachary (NOW LIVE! ~~beginning at 12:01am ET~~) is a big part of those 24 hours, but it’s about much more than that. A crush tourney is just another great excuse for a Team Kilt party, and we have amazing things planned!

I made a Crush Tourney Central post with links to VIP (very important posts) both here and elsewhere. It'll stay at the top of the blog, so all you have to do is pop back here for new links to all the insanity, including giveaways. Zach's phenomenal advocates Fictitious Delicious are cooking up some stuff that even I don't know about, but I'll link to it as soon as I do.

WISHING TREE

Fictitious Delicious is creating a virtual Wishing Tree (like the hawthorn “faerie” tree in SHINE) to be adorned with YOUR wishes over the next day and nights.

From their post: “Maybe you'll wish for a life of peace for your loved one or grant a final wish for someone special in your life. Whatever you wish for, make it count. This virtual species of the Hawthorn Tree is known for making wishes come true. Email your one sentence wish and an image to represent it to amyojens at gmail dot com between now and next Tuesday (July 24).”

There's still a couple hours left to add your wish.

GIVEAWAY HOP

For What It’s Worth blog is hosting a giveaway hop. If you have a blog and would like to give away a SHADE-related item to support Zach and Team Kilt, simply link up at the bottom of the post.

But there's more! At the same For What It's Worth post, you can enter to win some VERY cool prizes, including signed books by me and other YA authors, a query critique by my illustrious agent, Ginger Clark, and a full manuscript critique by yours truly!

PINTEREST

The Team Kilt Pinterest is rocking! Go there to grab your favorite avi or picture, or check out some of the awesome videos. If you have your own Pinterest, please repin your favorites!

THE BOYS SPEAK

Logan and Martin have written a blog post about why, from a male perspective, Zachary is crushworthy, complete with shirtless Zach pictures and a shocking story from his past.

#SHADEboysAfterDark HANGOUT

Tonight from 11:30pm to ???am eastern time, check out that hashtag for a casual, fun time, possibly with prizes, definitely with goofiness.

CHARITY

The official charity of Round 2 is Greyhound Welfare, the rescue group that brought our greyhound, Meadow, into our lives nine years ago. It was the best way I could think of to honor her memory.

Pledge form is here on my blog.

INCENTIVE!!

(Be honest, some of you scrolled past the other stuff to get to this, didn’t you? It’s what I would’ve done. Just ask my mom. I always snooped in closets and under beds to find unwrapped Christmas gifts.)

During the nomination round, I said that if Zachary reached the finals, I would write a little story about Senior Prom night. Aura mentions it briefly in the final chapter of SHINE (“when, yeah, he wore the kilt.”), but gives no details.

Tonight and tomorrow, I want to give you details.

Starting now…

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“That dress is killing me.”

Aura smiles in response and gives a self-conscious tug on the hem of her skirt. The black dress is short in the front, mid-thigh, but long in the back, and flowing all round, so that the right breeze might lift it farther. At least in my imagination.

“Only a spectacular dress would keep you from upstaging me in that.” She leans back on the limosine’s leather seat and gestures to my kilt. She stops an inch short, as if it’s a sacred relic.

“What, this auld thing?” I smooth down the green wool over my

-------

To be continued here.

Those are the first 100 words of “The Power of the Kilt, or, How We Survived Prom Night and Lived to Tell.” (That’s just a working title—I’m VERY open to suggestions.)

Every time Zachary gets another 100 votes, I’ll add another 100 words. So far I’ve written 1,111 words, and I expect Zach will get many more votes than that.

Which means at some point, I’ll be writing on the fly. It might get messy, it might get weird, it will most definitely get silly. There may come a time when I’ll ask you which way the story should go, like a Choose Your Own Adventure tale.

MAKE ME WRITE LIKE THE WIND, TEAM KILT. If Zachary wins tomorrow, I’ll finish the story and get Aura and Zach back to their hotel room.

If Zachary wins tomorrow, that kilt is coming off.

OTHER INCENTIVES

I’ll be giving away print illustrated copies of “Shattered” again on my blog, on the Prom Night story post. One copy per 500 votes Zachary receives. I’ll draw random winners on Friday.

Annotated SHADE trilogies will be given away at For What It’s Worth, one per 1000 votes Zach receives.

Other smaller, fun prizes will pop up spontaneously throughout the day. Follow me, Logan, and Zachary on Twitter, for chances to win. There'll undoubtedly be "Shattered" lines shared at some point, to shake things up.

IN THE EVENT OF…

Obviously a victory is far from a sure thing. Our opponents outnumber us tenfold, and they know they have to try hard to beat us. My sources tell me they’ve brought out reinforcements for this battle, because they respect what you’ve created here. Kudos to them for that, and for all their hard work.

But you know what IS a sure thing? That we will have a great time together, celebrating books and music and laughter, as we have so often in the past.

What ELSE is a sure thing? That Team Kilt is not about one or two tournaments, or even about one boy. It will go on long after tonight and tomorrow are nothing but a hazy, crazy memory.

Team Kilt is forever.