ABNA Contest

I've been reading a few of the ABNA finalists, and have noted that most of the prospective winners have blogs and that indeed, many of them are published writers, so don't feel too badly if you didn't make the cut. Competition was stiff.

I have two favorites, neither crime fiction. This morning I read an entry, must be young adult, although I couldn't tell for sure. The author is a self-admitted romance writer, but someone on the message board was squawking that there were no romance finalists, and since the couple pages I read seemed like teen-age romance, I guess it's Y.A. Young Adult to the uninitiated.

Y.A. is very hot right now, and I'm probably making a big mistake not to write my Y.A. before the California book.

Back to the teenie bopper romance, there was a glaring writing mistake in the first paragraph, which made me wonder how the story reached the finals. Well, maybe it's good story. I understand now, that good story tops bad writing.

Repeat after me. Good story tops bad writing.

I'm reading a California book, Pasadena, a big whopping historical that is holding my attention so far. Plan to take it to Florida because it's long enough for two plane rides and some before bed reading. It begins with a gripping Prologue. Didn't know "regular' novels did that. Well, anything to catch the reader's attention.

I'm preparing my reading for the mystery conference. Discovered that the group I practiced in front of didn't know what a "back cover blurb" was. Also didn't understand that all hackers have handles.

Never assume anything.

Ah, the sun is out! The snow plows were in our neighborhood late last night and early this morning. Did anyone say sleep?

Yesterday was cat blog day and the cats were lumps of fur, fat and bone. Did absolutely nothing bloggable except that Annie discovered that twist ties make a good cat toy, and Thisbe did a fine 50 yard dash when the DHL man rang the doorbell rather late in the day.

Next post I'll list my two ABNA favorites. Go read them and leave a comment. If you are an Amazon customer. Or whatever.

Grapeshot