Heyyyyyy! Guess what?

LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVE is being published by Swoon Reads / Macmillan! The expected release date is January 23, 2018! I don’t think I’ve used enough exclamation points yet!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, every author talks about The Call Story–that moment when a bedraggled writer is finally told “YES! WE WANT TO PUBLISH YOUR BOOK!” And I do as well, but want to know what’s more entertaining?

The Email Story (with gifs!)

On a perfectly normal, perfectly boring, perfectly innocent Monday, I sat at my desk at The Day Job.

I’m sure I was working on something, but what’s important is I was texting my good friend and SaltMate for life. We were feeling particularly salty that morning about something I won’t mention (yes, I remember what it was).

We’re rapid fire texting, right, and  after my last message, I sat my phone down to wait for her reply.

My phone chimed. It’s not SaltMate.

It’s an email from Swoon Reads.

“Whaaaaaaaat?” I said, out loud, long and exaggerated.

I previewed the message.

Quickly, I snapped out of happy shock because this is me and good things don’t happen that often in my life.

“No,” I said, doubting myself. “No. Just, no way. It can’t be.”

I read the message.

And here’s where it get a bit fuzzy: I remember standing up, trying not to scream (because remember, I am at my primary place of employment), but then I fail miserably and end up screeching like a genetically engineered prehistoric creature.

I fell all the way out.

My boss walked in, seriously alarmed, because I was then sitting on the floor crying and having a massive panic attack. The man literally had to lead me through breathing exercises to calm down.

I. WAS. A. MESS.

I pulled myself together and attempted to send my reply. It didn’t send, but of course, it didn’t tell me that. I figured it out twenty minutes later when the CC’d copy doesn’t arrive at my business email.

TURNS OUT that email server was having a massive outage.

On one of the most magical days of my life, I couldn’t send my email. SaltMate has the brilliant idea to just use a different email to reply and explain what happened. Which, you know, worked, obviously. Why didn’t I think of that, you ask? Probably because I looked like this:

I could barely form coherent thoughts. All I could do is stare into space for the rest of the day. My brain was fried.

Anyway, now here I am months later, finally able to share the news, and I’ve had some time to adjust. Usually, this is the part of the blog post where writers say it still doesn’t feel real. I’m going to have to politely disagree…

Because I have edits to turn in. Soon.

Next post: What Deadline Feels Like (because hooooooboy is there a story there…)