Happy Monday, everyone!

It's been frigid in the Northeastern part of the U.S. I woke to -4 degrees F (with a -15 windchill). Since then the temperature has risen to a balmy 8 F. So to combat the cold, I'm wearing my warmest fleece pullover, sipping Barry's tea, and eating leftover chocolate birthday cake. How's that for self comfort?

I'd like to give a shoutout to Becky Taylor who is running a contest over at her blog. She's giving away an ARC of Delirium by Lauren Oliver, author of Before I Fall. Here's the catch: you only have until 3:00pm mountain time to hop on over to her blog and post a comment if you'd like to win. So click on over now, and then come back for news on another cool contest.

Welcome back. Did you know that current author/former literary agent Nathan Bransford is having a first paragraph contest? Follow this link, read his contest rules and post your first paragraph of a current WiP. First prize is to have your partial manuscript read and considered by Nathan's agent, Catherine Drayton of Inkwell. You have from now until Thursday, January 27 4:00pm pacific time to enter. I'm thinking of entering mine but haven't quite decided yet. I have the jitters just thinking about it! My plan is to reread and polish it and then if I think it's ready, I'll swallow hard, close my eyes, and hit Publish. I've never entered a contest like this before so this would be a big first step.

I think I need another slice of chocolate cake.

How about you? Have you ever entered any first line, first paragraph, first page contests and what was your experience? And do you need to think about it over a slice of chocolate cake?