Trying to set a new personal best

Yesterday, I embarked on a quest to set a new personal best. Personal best, you say! Of what?

Rejections.

I sent out a batch of query letters yesterday for AN UNTIDY AFFAIR and will now see if I can top my personal best set on Sept. 13, of last year when I got four (4, IV) rejections on the same day. That topped the previous best of three set one week earlier.

While this is probably a worthy goal, I, sadly, will probably not top it anytime soon because my querying strategy has changed since last fall. I am sending out fewer queries at a time and if all the responses are negative, then I re-write the query in hopes of drawing more interest.

I send four queries yesterday throughout the day as time permitted, and will ship off three today. And that is it. Seven. Then, I will wait to see what happens. If nothing good happens, then I know that letter doesn't work and I will to try again with another letter. And then I will ship off another batch of seven.

For this letter, I used my novel's background as outlined in my Publishers Weekly review. It was good and generally well-written. I adapted parts, of course, but the overall structure was the same. Now I will see if that helps. Plus I made a brief mention of being a quarterfinalist in this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Time to see if that horse has any legs.

Well, that's it for today. I have a couple of other topics I want to discuss next week. But for now, have a great day and keep writing.

Thanks for reading.

Solid, but not particularly noteworthy

I know I have started this and should finish but today has been particularly busy and I will have to come back to this tomorrow. But for just a moment, I did want to return today to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and, more specifically, my Publishers Week review.

It was a mixed bag but in the end concluded with, "Solid, but not particularly noteworthy."

What am I to make of that?

Yes, I know it is only one person's opinion and they implied that the writing was good, which was nice to know. But the 'note particularly noteworthy' line puzzles me.

In the next couple of days I am going to try to figure that out, and then polish my novel yet again. I don't know what else to do.

When I have time, I will post all my reviews for you, dear reader, to consider. Until then, thanks again for supporting me, thanks for reading and sally forth.

ABNA -- I'm out

I haven't blogged but once since I entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest this year, and I made it a point not to post about the contest. I didn't want to become consumed with ABNA or have people asking me how it was going.

I first entered in 2009 with DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL, though I went with a name that was more PC. I was eliminated in the first round. I just missed entering AN UNTIDY AFFAIR in the contest in 2010, missing the cutoff deadline by mere minutes.

This year I entered Affair under the title A NASTY AFFAIR by M. Stewart Dunn.

To enter the contest, you submit a 300-word pitch, which is judged in the first round, a 5,000-word excerpt from the beginning of the novel, which is judged in the second round, and the entire manuscript, which is used to determine the semi-finalists, finalists and the two eventual winners.

Since I didn't do well in 2009 and I spent hardly any time writing the pitch this year, I was surprised (and pleased) to make it through the first round. Plus, I got two wonderful Amazon Vine reviews of the excerpt -- with one reviewer saying, "The author's talent is there in spades" -- as I advanced to the quarter-finalist round. (Wasn't sure how I felt about the 'spades' comment but decided to take it on face value.) And I got five customer reviews. Four of the five were very positive.

I felt quite hopeful of being named a semi-finalist but, alas, it is not to be. Ths list of semi-finalists was announced less than an hour ago and my name isn't on it.

I was well-aware of the possibility, of course. The competition was very strong this year. But I had confidence in my writing, and in the story. Where I lacked confidence, however, was in my self-editing.

I read through the novel line by line before I entered the contest but, since the submission period was already open, I didn't think I had time to have someone else proof it for me before I entered. Afterwards, I was surprised and embarrassed at the spelling and other errors in the ms. But there was nothing I could do about it but hope. In the end, I'm sure the errors hurt my chances of advancing, perhaps fatally hurting them.

I feel about as bad as I thought I'd feel but life goes on. I plan to go over the manuscript completely again and have someone else do a final read. Then I plan to let the query letters fly again and see where it all leads.

And I am on the third draft of the novel I wrote last November during National Novel Writing Month. It is stronger that Affair and I plan to enter it in next year's ABNA competition.

So that's it for me at the moment. Sad but resolute.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

Sorry I have been away

I am sorry, dear readers in Russia, China and Brazil (I get people from all over), that I have been away. It's been a busy time for me and I just haven't had a lot to say. Plus, once I got out of the habit of posting, even on a semi-regular basis, it was easy to allow work and everyday life to intrude further into this part of my writing life.

So, I am back again.

Probably won't have much more to say this week, but next week I will probably have a lot of my mind and will fill you in on things then.

Until then, have a good week. Thanks for reading and keep writing.