Stoneveil and the Unexpected Confidence Boost

Quick writing update.

A couple of weeks ago I submitted the prologue of Stoneveil: Shadows Under Ice to ProWritingAid's Novel Beginnings contest for 2026.

To be completely honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Honestly, what I really craved then was some external perspective, or perhaps reassurance that I wasn't entirely off my rocker dedicating so much time to tales of frigid mountain villages, unearthed secrets, shady characters, and enough misdirection to stock a bait shop.

A few weeks later, I received an email that the story had made the longlist.

 Out of nearly 15,000 entries, Stoneveil placed in the Top 1%.

 That honestly caught me off guard.

While the story didn’t advance to the final shortlist, making the longlist still meant a lot to me because it confirmed something important:

This story has potential.

 I feel writers probably spend a lot of time inside their own heads wondering if what they're creating actually works. They can spend months analyzing the same chapters and lose all objectivity. Eventually every sentence becomes suspect.Winning reader recognition in a contest like this made me remember that Stoneveil resonated with people outside of me talking to myself over my computer that a murder mystery set in a frozen mountain town was worthwhile.

Clearly … it was.What makes this particularly special is that mysteries/crime novels are still somewhat new genres for me. Stoneveil pushed me into a different kind of storytelling — one built around atmosphere, tension, investigation, and keeping readers guessing.

Seeing my work connect with others really bolstered my confidence for what came next.Stoneveil: Shadows Under Ice is fully done at the moment and sitting in that weird publishing purgatory of deciding if I want to traditionally publish, self-publish, or just figure out some blend of coffee and terrible decisions as a final route forward.

The book isn't available to the public yet, but YES I WILL DEFINITELY BE TALKING ABOUT IT MORE SOON.

And hey, if not for anything else, now I have my fancy “Top 1%” badge to show off. Way classier than my computer folder initially titled “snow murder thing.”