I had to stop writing blog stories to prepare submitting my first time entry in the contest. It's a humorous mystery, "Eula May and the Flim Flam Nun," which runs about 70,000 words. After the contest, it will be posted on amazon.com as both an e-book and as a Print on Demand book. I thought you might like to read the 300 word 'pitch' that I wrote for the contest.
Pitch:
Eula May and the Flim Flam Nun
is a mystery laced with humor instead of arsenic and riddled with
romance rather than bullets.
Eula
May chokes back a shriek as she stumbles over the blackmailing nun's
murdered body. Will this affect her wedding plans? Lance--rich,
handsome, candidate for mayor—will dump a fiancee` involved with
the police. And he's her last ticket to happy heaven.
After
torching the chef's toupee on a Hollywood cooking show, she dragged
her tutu home to Kentucky, doomed to teach dance. Lance's proposal
opens doors she feared were glued shut. Would the nun's death slam
them back on her fingers?
Eula
May groans hoping no one learns the twisted sister made a pass at her
and when spurned turned to blackmail for revenge. Who would believe
a dancer against the lies of the strange, holy woman who brought a
miraculous Weeping Madonna statue to town? Eula May flees the nun's
trailer without finding the faked pictures showing her 'molesting'
her students.
Gossipy
neighbors accuse her of murder, resulting in her. Out
on bail, she resolves to win back her faithless fiance who's ignoring
her calls.
Seeking
clues to prove her innocence, she's caught squeezing through the
nun's back window. Threatened with jail again, Eula May struggles
on. She's thwarted by thugs hearse-jacking the nun's body on its
way to the cemetery, but outwits desperate strangers from the 'Hot to
Trot' motel who kidnap her students. Vindication is almost hers when
she pries the nun's medical secrets from an amoral pharmacist,
solving half the puzzle.
At
a deadly dinner, Eula May challenges the murderer, risking her life
to save her future.
The End, or is it?Contest information:
The contest is open to the first 10,000 submissions. So, yes, there is a lot of competition. When it closes on March 2, the judges will read 300 word pitches for each submitted novel and select 2000 from the original 10,000 to go on to the next level. The next level is the 'excerpt', which is the first 3,000 to 5,000 words of the submitted novel. Four hundred of those will be selected to have the entire novel read and judges. Twenty-five of the four hundred will be selected and then posted on line for the general pubic to read and comment on. Eventually a grand winner and four runners-up will be announced on July 21. I'll keep you posted on the course of events.
The End
