And so it has come to pass that the voting for Round 8 of this great challenge has come to a close. All that’s left is to report on the results of the voting that took place over the past two weeks.

Some Classic Car photos, anyone?

20 votes were cast for this round, which is less than usual . . . except that’s what we had for the last round, so maybe this is the new usual.

I believe The Twins didn’t advertise as much as usual. That — atop fewer reminders on my part — probably account for the number of votes we got. Although, going all out doesn’t get us that many more votes.

This round had Perry jump to a strong start and early lead, and never letting up. I dominated second place for a short while, but a last-minute vote by Gary’s fans had him take silver.

Someone running late and still wanting to express their appreciation for their favorite story can do so HERE, and, while any additional votes will not count, they will be registered for posterity. For them who still haven’t read the stories, here are the links and a teaser description:

E. J. D’Alise submission<<link
Ladies! Does your man mystify you? Is his behavior leaving you confused? Let me mansplain men for you! Send your questions, and I’ll answer them! Just write to Dear John and get manly advice for women about men!

R. G. Broxson submission<<link
No need for an intervention. Just because I’m also an 8th-grade teacher doesn’t mean I’m suicidal like my protagonist in this story. John’s been down a rough road and has had a really crappy role model. Will he let his past define his future? Read on to learn his fate.

Perry Broxson submission<<link
Teddy is an uptight trivia nerd, too obsessed with factoids to live his best life. After missing a critical question on John Denver, Teddy focuses his big brain on knowing all there is to know about the deceased musician . . . including Denver’s tragic and mysterious death. Who knew that God simply needed a tenor to join his heavenly band?

As a reminder, each writer wrote a story drawing on whatever inspiration they got from the title “Dear John”.

The voting closed today at Noon. Here are the results.

Congratulations to Perry for the win and Gary for the silver.

I doubled the number of votes I had in the last round, so I’m happy. Plus, I had a great time writing my piece.

What about more classic car goodness?

A Round 9 title has been chosen (by Perry), and the stories for that title — Behind the Green Door — are tentatively set to publish . . . well, I don’t know when, but let’s shoot for sometime before next weekend. I’ll actually try to get mine done before then (I was early for this round), despite doing some painting around the house.

For this post, I used photos of a distressed vehicle I’d photographed and ran them through Topaz Studio 2.

Some are a bit odd . . .

But others are better.

You can click on the images to get a larger version open in a new tab or window, and anyone wishing to see the full-size versions can visit the SmugMug Gallery of all the Reminder Photos and look at the photos for this round. But meanwhile, here are two more.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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