The Call!

If you have ever submitted a manuscript to a publishing house, you will know the significance of those two little words. The Call.

The moment for which wannabe authors spend their days and nights obsessing over their manuscripts before sending it off. You’ve had months to prepare for ‘the call’. And yet, when it happens, it strikes you dumb. No matter how the words are delivered — your manuscript has been approved for publication — the effect remains the same. If you’re not exactly dumb-struck, you’re probably trying to hold back an ear-shattering victory yelp that will probably damage your editor’s auditory canal, and with it whatever chance you have of becoming a published author!

In my case, I was struck deaf.

No kidding. I just couldn’t hear what my fabulous Harlequin Mills & Boon editor Pippa Roscoe was trying to tell me. OMG! For a nano-second I truly believed I’d go down in history as the only author who went deaf just before she could hear those sweet, sweet words. Thankfully, sanity returned quickly, and I realized the culprit was a bad Skype connection! Skype, my doughty ally in many of my writing adventures, nearly did me in this time.

Seconds later, Pippa was back on the line and as I stuttered that I hadn’t heard her, she laughed out loud, “You missed the most important bits!” 😀

That little drama provided me with a light-bulb moment.  I had actually transitioned from a wannabe author to a soon-to-be-published author in a matter of seconds and a dropped phone connection. If the Cosmos was trying to send me a message, I haven’t figured it out yet!

And before I go off to pop the champagne, did I mention I was offered a two-book deal and my first book (title still to be finalised) will be out in the second half of this year? No? I guess, the shock hasn’t quite worn off! 😀

Image courtesy: digitalart http://www.freedigitalphotos.net