It happened—I got the email that I’ve been waiting years to receive! It was from a publisher (hopefully to be named very soon) stating that they would love to offer me a contract for publication for my novel.
Now I’m not typically a jump up and down girl, but that’s exactly what I did. I yelled for my son first—my twelve-year-old is such a fan of books and my goal to become a published author—and when I found him, we jumped up and down together. Ditto for my eight-year-old son. There’s nothing better than getting a congratulatory hug from your kids! I got a big one from my toddler daughter as well. She was delirious with all the excitement happening around her. My husband was at work. It took all I had not to call him right then, but I really wanted to tell him in person.
The email couldn’t have come at a crazier time of day. Per usual, I was trying to finish about a thousand tasks before leaving to pick up one of my son’s friends and take a full carload to his first little league game of the season. I’m not sure why I checked my emails on my phone in the
middle of that chaos, but it had become a bit of a habit since I’ve had my full manuscript out on submission. When I saw an email from the publisher, I read in complete disbelief and amazement. The air left me in that instant and in the best way possible.
I called my parents—my two biggest supporters—and let them know about the email as I was driving to the ball field. When I saw my husband, I wanted to run to him and spill the beans but I managed to find the discipline to stop myself. I didn’t reply to the publisher’s email right away—I wanted to be home and in front of my laptop to compose a coherent message—but then I received a DM via Twitter from them saying, “Check your email. We loved your book!” It compelled me to bang out a message back to them thanking them, sharing my excitement, and letting them know I’d be available over the next two days to talk via phone.
I still couldn’t believe it 24 hours later. I repeatedly returned to my email account to make sure the message was really there. I was eager to hear back. I even reached a point the following evening when I questioned whether my reply had gone through. While sitting with my family at the Cincinnati Reds game, I confirmed that indeed it had. And here's my awkward confession: I printed out the publisher’s email and carried it around in the back pocket of my pants like a cherished note from a cute boy in high school!
I heard back on Thursday morning from one of the co-owners saying that he could speak with me that day at 12 or in the evenings. I replied immediately and said that 12 p.m. worked for me. The kids and I had to make a mad dash out to the sporting goods store to buy baseball pants for my eight-year-old son who had his first baseball game later that evening. I figured I had only about 20 minutes to spare if the errand took about an hour. It wasn’t ideal to have to make that run, but I’m happy about it in retrospect. I would have gone crazy waiting for that call to happen. My next post will be about that phone call, but needless to say, it ended with the offer of an official book publishing contract!