Write Timing – 2014 ABNA Entry

by Jason Mathews

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Entry - this eBook is a sample of the first 3,000-5,000 words; it is not the full book. The ABNA contest is operated on Amazon.com only. Visit this entry on Amazon.com to leave customer feedback. To vote for the Grand Prize winner starting July 8, visit www.amazon.com/ABNA. The timing was right. Jackson Chase was a struggling writer from Seattle until he met Bruce McCallum; “I want you to write a book about my death,”he told Jackson. With a promise of $20,000 to write Bruce's biography, Jackson is quick to sign a contract and get the cash that would elevate him from starving writer to simply hungry. After weeks of learning about Bruce’s life, every truth Jackson thinks he knew is destroyed when he witnesses Bruce’s death on the 5 o’clock news. Two days before Bruce is supposed to retire from his custodial job at Western Pacific University, on the day of graduation for the class of 1996, he commits a heinous act of terrorism in a suicide bombing that sparks political outrage and devastates the university. The authorities have confiscated all of Jackson’s notes on one of the century’s most diabolical killers. Publishers are offering substantial advances for exclusive rights to a book Jackson is still bound to complete. However, when Jackson discovers who the beneficiary to Bruce’s estate is and that the majority of publishing royalties from Bruce’s biography will go to a hate organization Bruce belonged to, Jackson must make a decision. Does he publish the book, reap the monetary rewards and establish himself as a writer, knowing that he would indirectly fund hate crimes for the next decade or continue to work with the authorities to expose the truth and make himself the next target?

16 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 14, 2014