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.