Sunday, February 7, 2010

JANO Party A Success

Our first annual JANO 2010 celebration sponsored by Sleuths' Ink was a rousing success. Twenty writers in four different states participated. At our party, we dined on pizza at San Francisco Oven, recognized the four busy writers who made the 50,000-word goal, voted for five other categories (which was very difficult with all the incredible entries), and had a literary reading of every writer's blurb and first page prior to voting for those two categories.

Afterward, we enjoyed an adorable mystery writers' cake, recevied JANO 2010 stones, JANO bookmarks and JANO certificates. We even had a couple of door prizes won by Shirley McCann and Vera Jane Goodin Schultz--a $10 Panera gift card each.

JANO WINNERS & PRIZES:

Stephanie Jarkins
- first to 50k (a beaded red and black pen)
Shirley McCann - second to 50k ($25 Renaissance Book Store gift card)
Cindy Dagnan - third to reach 50k ($10 Panera Bread gift card)
Rose Lombardo - honorable mention for 50k (($10 Panera Bread gift card)
Jerry-Mac Johnston - Best title: "Ice Picks, Bombs and Bodies" (a journal)
Wanda Parrott - Best first sentence: "Killing Flippo was easy." (I Survived JANO mouse pad)
Jerry-Mac Johnston - Most Unique Setting: The Bare B, an upscale strip joint (Writers' Survival Tote and goodies)
Pat Eliott - tied for Most Intriguing Plot (It All Changed In An Instant, autographed six-word memoir book)
Shirley McCann - tied for Most Intriguing Plot (The Marshall Plan For Novel Writing)
Beth Carter - tied for Best First Page (chose no gift)
Glendon Thomlison - tied for Best First Page (Two books donated by Borders)
Nancy Dailey - tied for Best First Page (Two books donated by Borders)
Cindy Dagnan - Most Motivational Participant (hand-made journal)
Beth Carter - Best Effort by a JANO member (I Survived JANO tee)

Several members volunteered to serve on our JANO 2011 committee: Stephanie Jarkins, Rose Lombardo, Shirley McCann, Beth Carter, DeLane Parrott, Nancy Crandall and Vera Jane Goodin Schultz.

Finally, a huge thanks to our gracious donors: Borders, Renaissance Book & Gift Store, Panera Bread, Rick McCann, Shirley McCann, Jerry-Mac Johnston, Rose Lombardo, photographer John Schultz and Beth Carter.

Thank you for participating in JANO 2010 and making this event a success. Remember to keep adding to your novels, edit, polish, and get them in the hands of agents and editors by late fall so you can start all over again in January!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You did a great job Beth!
Thank you so much for the fun experience and for the great Jano party too!

Palooski65 said...

Some of us were winners without appearing on the list. Every one of us that accomplished more than we would've without the JANO challenge, were winners, too. I feel like I came out waaaaaaay ahead. Thanks so much for the prodding, pushing, and pulling--I'm grateful.

BTW--no offense intended but I was terrifically (is that a word?) happy that I wasn't the very lowest number of words produced.

I'm really excited about getting busy on my Mei-Xing story now, too.
Seems like I just needed that jump-start. Ha! Snicker!

Anyway, I had a GREAT time. Thanks Shirley and Beth for all your dedication and hard work on behalf of Sleuth's Ink.

Beth said...

You're welcome, ladies (and gents). Everyone pushed hard in January and it was a great way to kick off 2010.

All the entries were very impressive and the word counts were off the charts for one month's work! Way to go everyone. Keep working so we can see your books in print.

P.S. Ginny is so right--everyone who participated is a winner.

Shirley said...

I was definitely impressed with the number of participants who made such an effort during the month. It's easy to say you're working on a book, but a bit more difficult when you actually SIT down to write 1613 words a day.

Absolutely loved it, and can NOT wait until next January. Did I just say that? I hate winter. But maybe not so much now.

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