UPDATE AGAIN: The semi-finalist pages have been taken down. The final 10 will be announced on March 3rd. UPDATE: I received notice that my excerpt of Torch has survived another round of cuts, this time down to 100. The next round, down to 10, happens in early March. A few months ago I submitted a 5,000 word excerpt from my novel Torch, on a whim, to the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel contest. I've been exposed to contests like these before, both in the form of warnings and depressing tales of stomped egos; never in the form of optimistic encouragement. Bookseller-sponsored writing contests have a certain stigma, not unwarranted, I'm sure. But, here's hoping those warnings are just the foul remnants of those taken by less legitimate contests. I received notice today that Torch has survived the initial dwindling of 5,000 to less than 900. I'm happy. Despite the humility and caution…
