I’m a sucker for the opportunity to reap massive rewards for basically doing nothing. It’s why I have a Keurig coffee maker and why I’m seriously considering those little motors that attach to the side of your canoe.

So when my uber-writer friends on Twitter started twittering about a contest to win a FULL MANUSCRIPT REQUEST from super-agent Suzie Townsend (the literary kind, not the ninja kind, don’t panic), and all I had to do was summarize my entire life’s work (well, okay, just the one young adult novel) in 140 characters or less, I was in.

Here is my entry for YA writer Shelley Watters’s Twitter contest (contest details at shelleywatters.blogspot.com). The thing that is supposedly fun about this contest is to narrow down the entire premise of your book into 140 characters or less. First of all, I can barely give my order at Starbuck’s in 140 characters or less, let alone tell you what my book is about. Second, people who can do it in the “or less” part are either overachievers or underachievers. Third, (this isn’t a very long list) I’m having trouble with writing anything right now because my daughter used this computer last and now the quotes/apostrophe key is sticky and every time I hit that key it’s very distracting to have my finger attached to it for a nanosecond.

But here goes, my entire 58,000 word book whittled down to 140 characters (fine! or less!):

Lorca Damon @LorcaDamon
YA contemporary
58,000+
Sam lives alone w/ her Alzheimers-stricken grandma & is afraid people at school will find out. That’s the least of her problems right now.

I DID IT! With two characters left over! I did it in the “or less” part! I did it! WOOHOO!

Rock on, Twitter literati!