An early start to the day

I'm up early today. It's March 16, the day the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award quarterfinalists are announced. It's been six weeks since I enttered the contest and the same amount of time since I have heard anything official from the organizers.

I have generally been pretty calm about the whole affair. I check the discussion boards and often comment. Judging from those who have been through this before, having a visibility on the boards will come in handy later in the contest. Writers who know you through the various forum threads offer a lot of help and support in marketing you.

I didn't hang out in the forums all day yesterday, although I commented once or twice. What I did for most of the day was continue with my normal life. I wrote some good stuff for "The Death of Art" and hung out with family.

I went to bed as normal but didn't sleep well. I kept waking up thinking about ABNA and that the results were coming in. I finally got up at 5, partly because it was time for my daughter to leave with a friend on a Spring Break trip to Virginia and partly because I wanted to check on the contest.

At 5, it was March 16 across all of the continental United States. So if the organizers planned to release the list at midnight Eastern, Central, Mountain or Pacific time on the March 16, the time was past. But nothing.

I now realize I am quite anxious about the contest. I want to succeed but have absolutely no idea whether I will. I have seen a like of writing by authors that was better than I originally believed. And the requirements to get to the quarterfinals rest on two separate skills judged by two separate groups of people.

In addition, I have found errors in my excerpt and in my manuscript -- embarrassing errors that should hurt me some time or another.

So I wait. I'm not ready for the disappointment if I don't make it but it truly won't be the worst thing in the world. I have agents to query and more novels to write.

(I just kissed my daughter good-bye and had to stop her of leaving the house WITHOUT her coat and her purse, which has all her money in it. I love her but she really is clueless.)

Thanks for reading. I will probably post again some time later in the day.

And until then, keep writing.