Planning ahead [echo]

My friend Jim is a skilled bookbinder and document and book restoration expert.  He is also an author.  These two are combined in a contest he is running for persons who post reviews of one of his books, Communion of Dreams, on Amazon.com, and Jim asked me to draw the winners.

Jim also asked me to write up a brief description of how I will do it.  Unfortunately, I’ve been sick with strep throat this week, so other than work and sleeping I haven’t been able to accomplish much, even as much as thinking about how to perform the drawing.  Since Jim mentioned me in the latest reminderpost about the competition, I thought I would make a few suggestions about bribes give a general idea of how the drawing will occur.

Most likely, I will put all the names into a spreadsheet, sort alphabetically, and pick two numbers, one for the leather-bound copy and one for the cloth-bound copy.  I might do it based upon email addresses.  I might print out slips of paper, stir them in a hat, and pick from there.  Or have a friend pick from there.  Or a friend’s child.  Or two.  Or do what one of my grad school professors said he did to decide grades, and thrown them down the stairs – according to the professor, the ones that landed higher-up got better grades than those that fell further.  His logic was that the lighter the essay, the more succinct and on-point it was likely to be.

Whatever I decide, I’ll let everybody know the method used when I tell Jim who the winners are.

As for bribes, while I am likely to decline them (or forward cash and cash-equivalent to one of several charities I support), if you want to be creative:

• Donation to the charity of my choice.  Some suggestions:  Charter Oak Cultural Center, Real Art Ways' Educational Programming, the Pacific Whale Foundation, SWAN DAY Connecticut.
• Donation to the charity of Jim's choice.  Some suggestions:  Access Arts, Mark Twain House in Hannibal or Hartford.
• Giftcard for books.  Give it to a local afterschool project if you think I have enough books, or if you don't want to be taken as bribing me directly.
• Schoolbus.  In Kazahkstan.  Maybe two.
• Donate a bunch of chemo hats to your local oncology unit.  Donate a bunch of hours helping at a museum, an eldercare home, a veteran's hospital.  Pledge to tutor a child, cook and distribute meals at a soup kitchen, collect and sort food for/at a food pantry.

I'm not entering the drawing because (1) I was an early reader of the story, so I'm biased (but if it's good enough that I have read it more than once, even knowing the ending, that says something), and (2) I'm already getting a leatherbound copy because I donated to the Kickstarter campaign for the prequel, St. Cybi's Well.  I don't need to collect a set - I'll let this one go to someone else.

 

Someone whose name I'll be drawing later this weekend.