Narrative Magazine Spring 2013 Story Contest
When you’ve been plugging away at a novel as long as I have (and I won’t even say how long it’s been), you can occasionally begin to doubt whether the effort is worth it. It’s nice to be able to test the waters by submitting excerpts for contests and publication.
I’m happy to report a successful test of the quality of my longstanding project: I recently submitted the prologue to River of the Crumbling Banks to the Narrative Magazine Spring 2013 Story Contest, and to my immense delight, the piece was named a finalist.
My next step in testing the waters will be to send it out for publication, and see if I can actually get it in print. With about 200 of an estimated 350 pages written, I still have work to do, but with the right energy behind it, I am in striking range of finishing the book. Tangible reinforcement like this goes a long way toward generating the right energy.
Stephen Carson 