Risk

Prelude

I actually wrote this novel more than ten years ago. I had just begun a new project and had two good chapters under my belt when I heard about a “First Novel Contest” which only required you to send the first two chapters as your initial entry. I thought, what the heck, sent in my entry and kept on writing.

A few weeks later I received a notice congratulating me on being selected as a semi-finalist and asking me to send in the complete manuscript by such and such a date. Sorry, complete what now? At this point I was about halfway through chapter four. So I had to choose: would I throw in the towel, or take some time off work and write this thing in the ten days I had left until the deadline?

I went for it. Every day for about a week, I wrote a chapter between breakfast and lunch, one between lunch and dinner and one before I crawled into bed. My wife would have a look at what I’d written each day and help me proofread it, but I barely had time to fix the typos before I had to move on. On day ten, I had a finished manuscript and I printed it off, mailed it in to the contest and went to bed and slept for twelve hours.

Of course, I didn’t win or anything. What I had sent them amounted to a first draft and a mostly unpolished one at that. But on the plus side, I had a first draft of my first novel! After much substantive editing, rewriting, and four drafts, I began sending it out to publishers and agents and getting lots of positive comments, but no offers of publication. Most writers are familiar with this, I’m sure. When I first heard about Wattpad, this was the first thing I thought of posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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