Extra, Extra, I Won, I Won!

The winners of the Accentuate contest for the theme "Engagement" were announced today. I wrote a spoof of a famous literary detective called "The Case of the Cautious Couple." However, I wasn't sure that it worked for people who weren't familiar with the books. Guess it does! Well, I suppose the judges could all be fans of that series, but most people saw the TV series more than they read the books.

My story took first place! How cool is that? That means that when the anthology, "Elements of Love," comes out (later this year), that my name will be on the cover! This is the same volume that my story, "Invisible," will also be in. That means a contract and royalties! I won't make a living off of two short stories, but it is a small beginning.

Michy, founder of Accentuate, wrote: "I’ll be honest. When I first started reading this story, I was like… uh, dumb! Then a read a little further. Still dumb, then a little further, still dumb, but when I got to the point where she asked, 'Oh, so you know my husband?' I was laughing spontaneously and thinking of every bad detective spoof I’ve ever watched on television or read, and this one is right up there with those classics–dum, dum, dum, dum dummmmmmm!" You can read the entire announcement at Short Story Contest Winners, The Engagement.

To balance the euphoria, in the past few days I wrote 3 articles for Shared Reviews (see the full list for March at Just Throw Money, and 5 for Textbroker. Four of those got flagged for comma errors. I just can't figure out what they want... I did one more lonely draft page for Moose in Boots.

Perhaps the best thing I did was to list all my newspaper columns from the past four years and divide them by category. I'm considering grouping them by general topic areas and offering them as e-books. I also noted some possible titles for those books.

Back in a bit with the answer to the game!