HOORAY - SOME COMPETITION RESULTS

I've kept you waiting long enough. It's time to announce some competition results.

GUESS THE NAME

This was where you had to guess whether Jess was originally going to be called Josie, Laura or Izzy.

There was an interesting result to this. First, only one person got it right. Second, of those who got it wrong, everyone apart from one thought the correct answer was Josie. And third, something a bit odd and Wastedesque has happened. See, when I thought of the two wrong options of Josie and Laura, I thought I was doing it purely randomly, just picking names out of my head and they could have been anything. Then I forgot about it. A few days ago, I started writing a new book. I couldn't think of the character's name at first, and then the name I chose was...Josie, again thinking it was just any name. Only when I looked at all the competition entries last night did I realise that a) Josie was one of the false options I'd given you, and b) that everyone apart from two of you would think that was the correct answer.

Are you spookily reading my mind, or what?

Anyway, the winner of that competition is the only one who correctly guessed that Jess was originally going to be called Izzy. And that clever person is...Isla Donaldson! Well done, Isla! (This is not the first time Isla has won a book from me - she won a writing comp on my other blog a while ago.)

FARANTELLA'S NAME
And then there was the competition to say what Farantella's real name was. Surprisingly, there were only two entries to this. And, amusingly, the entries were from Isla and her mother, Clare! They both got the right answer - Doreen - so I had to choose which of their reasons for picking them I liked better. I liked them both a lot because they were witty and very nice to me, but I chose Clare, simply because I couldn't have her being beaten by her daughter AGAIN!

So, Clare and Isla both need to tell me which of my books they'd like and who they'd like them signed to.

THE RANDOMNESS COMPETITION

This was a fascinating one. Check out the entries here. I asked each entrant to suggest a method whereby I could pick as randomly as possible. I would then choose the method I preferred and then use it to determine the winner.

So, first I had to decide whose randomness generator I preferred. Because I'm lazy, I looked for the easiest method and Captain Black's was the one. It was also, basically, magic. Utterly cool to someone of my little brain. Try it. You copy and paste this code into your browser:

javascript:alert (1 + Math.floor (Math.random () * 100));

(Replace the 100 by whatever number you want - in my case 15 because there were 15 entries.)

When I applied Captain Black's method, I got the number 5. Which means that the winner is.... Lacer! Well done! So, Lacer, please email me your address and say which book you'd like and to whom you'd like it signed.

So, thanks to all of you for being good sports and amusing me and better luck next time.

Meanwhile, there's still the chance to enter TWO competitions. Go here and check out the two last competitions. Go for it!