Before I get to the main part of the post, an update -- everything is done on the refinancing through ING Direct except the closing, which hopefully will take place in the next week. So far it all looks good, so now it's just a matter of finishing up the fiddling paperwork. Fun.
Now, to the main thrust of this post ...
At least on the surface, what I have to talk about today doesn't appear to have much to do with finances, but watch my literary legerdemain and see how I tie it all back in....
Every year, Amazon.com runs the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest (ABNA). I have a young adult novel -- "The Coming of the Heroes" -- I've been working on for the better part of eight or nine years, so I submitted it to the contest back in January. From an initial pool of 5,000 young adult entries, my novel is now one of the top 250.
I'm inviting anyone and everyone to check out my excerpt (the prologue and first chapter) and, if the mood takes you, to rate it and leave me a review. The more reviews I can get, the better the novel will look overall, which is always a good thing.
So, how do you rate it, you ask? Simple...
1. Click here.
2. If you have a Kindle device, skip to step 3. If you don't, look at the right side of the screen, and there you'll see some options to download a free Kindle reader to your device -- PC, MAC, iPhone, Blackberry, etc. Click the one you want, and then install the software.
3. Now, go back to the page you went to in step 1. Over at the right side of the screen, click on the "Buy now with 1-click" button. Don't worry, it's free.
4. Read it. Then, down at the bottom of the page, click on "Create your own review" to rate and review the excerpt. This won't help me through to the next level of the contest, but if I progress far enough, these reviews will effect the hearts and minds of people who could potentially put me on even further.
So what does this all have to do with finances, you ask? I could take the easy route and say, "Well, if I win the contest, there's a publishing contract on the line, with a $15,000 advance against royalties." You see, there's a dollar sign in that sentence, so it must have to do with money, right?
But I won't take the easy route. Instead, I'll get philosophical for a moment...
Why do we want money? The simple answer is that we want money so we can do what we want to do, what we love to do, what we were born to do (or, if you're a Lost fan, what we're destined to do). Now, I don't claim any sort of divinely-given purpose, but I do know that I love to create things. I'm already a composer and arranger with many pieces in print, and no matter how many pieces I write, I'm always excited to get to the next piece.
The same is true of writing. I haven't had the success yet with writing that I've had with composing, but I love to do it just as much. Progressing in this contest just gets me closer to my dream, which is to live my life doing nothing but creating. More than the creating, though, is being able to share what I create with others, not out of a selfish "look at me!" purpose, but because I hope that what I've made will touch peoples' lives, and perhaps make those lives just a bit better. Even if I don't win the contest, the farther I progress, the more marketable my work becomes, and the more likely I'll be able to get my book out there where I'll have a real chance to share it with others.
So, a big thank you in advance for taking the time and effort to look at my excerpt, and if you feel called to rate and review it, so much the better. With spring break starting tomorrow, hopefully it'll be easier to find the time to write here more. In the meantime, enjoy the weather spring has to offer.
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