I’ve started to take a real shine to black-eyed peas. Back on New Year’s Day, in spite of my historical dislike for the spotted legumes, I tried a new recipe for Hoppin’ John and ate my black-eyed peas for good luck. My, how it’s paid off. My book has just moved into the quarter-final round of Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. I never expected to make it this far. Out of 10,000 original entries, 500 (100 in each category) are still in the running. So far, they’ve been judged on the pitch and an excerpt from the first few pages of the book. Next, someone from Publisher’s Weekly will evaluate and review each of the manuscripts, and the top five from each category will move to the semi-finals. My original post about black-eyed peas talked about taking chances and trying new things. New things are scary. Writing a book was scary. Publishing with Amazon so that anyone out there can read and criticize it was scary. Entering the contest was scary, but I’m so glad I did. In the