So I went ahead and sent in to the Mystery Writers of America for an entry form for the next "Best First Mystery" competition. And yippee... I got assigned to (I hope) a "good" judge: a woman author whose style and wry humor is similar (I think) to mine. I'm not gonna post her name here yet, 'cause I don't wanna jinx anything.
This ought to light some kind of a fire under my butt: deadline for submissions is 12/31/08, and now that I've been assigned this judge I don't want to blow the opportunity by not getting a submittable, near-perfect draft done in time.
I'm happy to say that the first 4 chapters are now in excellent shape, and I'm plodding forward. Chapters 5-13 are shaping up well, but need some tweaking in the plot department. The storyline itself is evolving painfully slowly still (I can write at the speed of light, but I plot like a fossilized mastodon). I'm trying to keep the plot/mystery reasonably simple -- while still achieving "clever" -- and let the characters deliver most of the fun. With a little luck and some ruthless editing I ought to be able to bring in a complete story draft at somewhere under way too many pages.
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