Nathan Bransford's First Paragraph Challenge

I'm not sure how many times I've mentioned Nathan Bransford, but here I am going to do it again.  For any aspiring writers out there, his website is full of incredible advice/tips/helps and an active forum filled with other fellow writers.  You DO NOT want to skip over his blog.  He is a former literary agent turned author that dishes out writerly advice to any who will listen - and I suggest you listen...or read...or, well, you get it!

Yesterday morning, he posted a contest and of course I entered.  It it his 5th Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge!   Here's the lowdown:

You can submit one time (seriously, only once), the first paragraph of any of your current works in progress.

Here's what you can win:

• The Ultimate Grand Prize: A partial manuscript read by Nathan's agent, Catherine Drayton of Inkwell - how awesome is that?!?!

• All the finalists will win a query critique by Nathan - that in of itself is awesome!

• All the USA finalists will win an Autographed copy of Nathan's newest installment in the Jacob Wonderbar series!

All the prizes are wonderful and certainly extremely generous, thanks to Nathan and his agent, Ms. Drayton.

My entry was for A Horse Named Penelope and after reading through my first paragraph, I realized I needed to make it more interesting.  Ha!  Nothing like a contest to get you to rework your novel.  Here is the first paragraph that I entered:

When I look in my mirror, I see a girl of flesh and bone. She may not be a beauty queen, but her features are not plain or disfigured. Why is it no one else can see me? I walk by the same students I’ve gone to school with my whole life and not one of them bats an eye. Even the school bus driver misses me every morning – he doesn’t see me either, which means I have to huff it on foot to make it to homeroom on time.

The entries close on Thursday at 7pm - so wish me luck!  Oh, and feel free to enter if you want a chance at any of the prizes mentioned above!!