Monday, May 23, 2011

Sayings

We have some sayings in our family. Mottoes, if you will. Just Don't Lie is one. And Always Turn Right. Also Don't Screw Up and That Doesn't Suck.

From these one might deduce certain things about our family. Like an attention span that can't be trusted to last more than three words, perhaps, or that we pride ourselves on lowering the bar. (Trust me, after OCD, major depression, death, and childhood cancer, our bar for happiness is pretty low.)

I went on submission last week. Yes, I'm still a writer. A writer with an agent and an unsold manuscript after fourteen months. I spent the winter doing a major rewrite on a previous novel and that novel was finally flung into the publishing world. I veered between excitement and a numb certainty that this novel, too, would sink without a trace.

But even the eternal pessimist in me could not but be excited when my agent called this morning. It was hard to believe that more than a dozen editors could have said no just in the space of a weekend. Indeed, they hadn't.

Good News: I have an offer.

Better News: Other editors had their interest piqued by this fact of an offer.

Bestest, most outstanding, it's-not-supposed-to-happen-to-me news: My book is going to auction on June 2nd.

Did you catch that? June 2nd. The day my oldest graduates from high school. I never expected the "book as child" metaphor to be stretched quite that far, but I'll take it.

I am apparently more superstitious than I ever thought, because I am actually afraid that posting this will make it all vanish. I will wake up. Or the editors will come to their senses. Or the prophesied end of the world will turn out to have been off by just a few days and the apocalypse will hit before June 2nd.

But still, as we say in our family: That Doesn't Suck.

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