I’m giddy with happiness and need to share.

Writing  and trying to publish a novel is a long, seriously long, journey, with very few accolades along the way.

With trepidation, I entered DESCENT in the Unhanged Arthur competition. This competition is for Canadian writers and is given for excellence in mystery, suspense and crime writing to unpublished authors.

I submitted my entry last fall. In January came the first exciting news. Descent made the long list. A wild sense of relief filled me. Descent had made it that far, and I felt pretty good. Now, all I had to do was wait until April 24th for the short list announcement.

That’s sounds easy, right?

Wrong. I didn’t sleep for the four nights leading up to the announcement. On the night of the 24th, I went to bed not knowing if Descent made the list or not. I woke up more times than I want to admit, but forced myself not to turn on my computer and check. If Descent wasn’t on the list, I knew I was in for a completely sleepless night.

On the morning of the 25th, I took my first sip of coffee, opened my laptop and collected my email.

The first message I read was from a facebook friend. The text read : Congrats on making the short list.

I looked up at my husband and smiled.

“I told you, you would make it,” he said with a big grin on his face.

Next I read the email from CWC (Crime Writers of Canada) with the official notice that Descent was short listed.

I asked my husband to read the email, just to make sure I wasn’t reading only what I wanted to see.

“Yup, he said. You made it.”

Friday turned out to go by in a blur. I couldn’t quite believe I was on the list.

Saturday morning, I woke up with the first feeling of happiness about the award.

I’m still in the middle of my journey, but once in a while it’s good to stop and enjoy small successes.

Thanks for reading . . .

Here are the places I found the announcement:

CBC Books

Crime Writers Of Canada

Blog Mystery Fanfare

Blog Criminal Element

Blog Shots Crime and Thriller Ezine 

Blog Mystery Mavin Canada

Blog Black Mask

Blog The Rap Sheet

Blog Mystery Scene