I’ve been writing fiction as a hobby for several years. I have not had anything published, but I’ve learned a lot about writing, had a lot of fun, and harbor dreams of maybe someday actually finding my novels in book stores. I am a realist, though. I know that there are thousands of us aspiring fiction writers out there writing novels no one will ever read. But that is going to change for one of us very soon.

I have entered my mystery novel, Carribean Ice, in a writing contest. It’s the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. In early February, there were up to 10,000 entries in all genre. They cut those to 2000 without any notice to the entrants. And then on March 16 they announced the 500 Quarter-finalists. I was lucky enough to be one of them. Each quarter-finalist gets a full manuscript review from Publishers Weekly. this is a valuable tool for writers. I’ll be interested to see what PW thinks of my book. (more…)