Well, I'm glad I didn't stay up until 1:30 to get my email. Furthermore, I'm glad I wasn't holding my breath about advancing--that would have hurt.
I won't say that I wouldn't have liked to move on, but that would just have been a gift. This way, nothing is "stolen" from me, I just get to go on working on the manuscript when I get a chance (I've had some delightful ideas about it lately, about adding another point of view) and send it elsewhere when I get the chance.
I'm getting better at this whole submission thing, I think. I think my PhD work has toughened me up to this a bit. When one gets used to giving papers and presentations and such for other people's evaluations on a regular basis, one doesn't take the fact that one of those submissions didn't advance in a competition as seriously. Especially when it was submitted on a whim at the last minute and one didn't have a chance to edit it, just flung it into the wind to see if it would come back.
Welcome back, little manuscriptlet. We'll try again when you seem ready to fly again.
10:32 a.m. update
Hm, I looked at my letter again, and compared it with the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award procedures. It looks like my little entry, while it didn't make it to the quarterfinals, survived the second round winnowing from 10,000 entries down to 2,000, as the email says there will be two reviews of my first three chapters waiting for me, which wouldn't have happened had it not made it through the first cut.
So, while it didn't make it into the top 500, it was judged to be in the top 20% of entries for the contest. Good job, little manuscriptlet!
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