Big Day #1

I made a note in my calendar so I would always remember the day. It was last month, November 20, a Thursday afternoon. I arrived at the house, gathered up my mail from the box, and parked. Sitting in the car, as I gleaned through the mail, I noted that I'd received a letter from an editor who was informing me that she was accepting one of my essays for an upcoming anthology.

Not a bad day so far. But when I stepped onto the front porch, I noticed a box. Inside the box were two copies of a book I'd contributed to more than a year prior. I'd forgotten all about that little project, but it was a nice feeling seeing the final product. I unpacked the books, stuffed them on the top of my bookcase (where I will likely discover them again in five years and say: "Oh, so that's where those are!") and strode into my office to check emails. Still not a bad day.

Lo and behold, when I pulled up my long list of emails, I discovered that two other editors had written to me. One was informing me that she was approving my book manuscript for publication (after two rewrites) and she was sending me forth to conquer with help from the marketing department. And the other email was from an editor at the United Methodist Publishing House requesting that I help write a new curriculum for confirmation (so I'll probably be traveling to Nashville some time this summer). Still not a bad day, and getting better.

Finally, when I checked my voice mail, ten minutes later, I noted an odd phone number on the caller ID. Never seen that phone number before in my life. But when I checked the message, I encountered the voice of a very excited editor who was informing me that she loved the book proposal I'd sent her last week and she couldn't wait to get her grimy hands on my manuscript and, in fact, the publisher wanted to know how quickly I could write the darn thing, since they want to publish it ASAP! I listened to the message three times just to make sure it wasn't a prank (like my brother, talking in a falsetto voice, trying to yank my chain). But no, this woman really wanted me!!!

Oddly enough, I have yet to talk voice to voice with the two editors who are determined to get my next book out in six months, and I have until the end of the year to write the whole shebang and get it polished up. I just keep sending them emails saying, "I'm writing like a man possessed every night until the wee hours of the morning and, look, this better not be a prank," and they keep sending me emails back saying, "Keep writing you sick little puppy you!" and others that inform me that, "yes, we will get you a contract in the mail very soon as soon as we figure out how to deal with a nut like you."

My Merry Christmas is going to be merry after all, and I'm carrying pencils, paper, laptop and my thesaurus with me everywhere I go. I'm not going to let these folks down and I'll write all night if I have to in order to get my 50,000 word manuscript completed (which should actually be a piece of cake, seeing that I have two weeks to get 'er done).

Everyone should have a big day from time to time . . . I just hope this doesn't turn out to be one of my old high school teachers trying to get payback for all of those anonymous papers I slipped underneath the teacher lounge door.