And if any of you figure out how to achieve a guaranteed #10, let me know the secret!

Oh yeah, done all of the above. Funny thing though, I’ve gotten nailed for not doing any of the above and having to stick all but the “dialect” regional or otherwise in. *puzzled* Interesting the dichotomies that arise in the publishing world depending on where one publishes…

The sky was sodden with rain! And so was Nick’s sweater!

“I hate this freaking rain!” Nick screamed loudly into the vaguely black and sparkingly starry night! His green eyes looked fierce against his mainly red sweater, which also had several cute little reindeer and a fat, jolly Santa on it! But no presents! There were no freakin’ presents on Nick’s sweater! Blimey! But his arm muscles bulged like balloons on steroids, and his thighs were about to Incredible-Hulk their way out of his pants, so Sara cheeringly forgave him for the lack of presents on his red-white-green-and-a-bit-of-North-Pole-blue sweater!

Sara caught her reflection in one of the fat, suddenly monstrously huge rain drops! The wind was strewing her shoulder-length, blond hair all over tarnation, her blue eyes didn’t quite match her orange eyeliner, and what was with the harshingly violent purple mascara running down her face? Hadn’t she put on violet this morning? !!

“Jiminy Crickets!” she suddenly cried! “If I had a regional dialect, this is definitely where I’d use it!” She grabbed Nick’s arm, and came away with a huge hunk of multi-coloured sweater and nothing else! Nick was melting away before her eyes!

“That’s not rain!” she piercingly shrieked as the ozone layer in the ink-black sky suddenly tore open and blazingly hot buckets of molten ooze slopped down upon them! “We’ve offended the Great Writing Gods! We’re going to diiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!”

All hell broke loose!