A Crazy, Fun, Cool Year

So 2012 has been a crazy year for me...it all started quite normally: I was waiting to hear from an editor about one of my books. It's what writers do. We write, we submit, we wait. I'd been a little less than a month - a drop in the bucket, really - when I got what I call the ca-mail:  Because I technically got an email, but this is a call story...and if you were a 'Friends' fan, you'll already be picturing Phoebe waving her arms in a circle with her head bobbing side-to-side. If you're not, well, floopy basically means...slightly freaked out, a little bit nervous and happy.

And yet throwing up wouldn't be out of the question.

Here's how it happened: I was on the phone with two fab ladies from the MVRWA chapter, finishing up a podcast for an upcoming event - different times, but within about a 5 minute window. We finished up and my iPad bleeped at me to remind me that I had corn ready to harvest in Smurfs Village - because, yanno, Smurfs work trumps real work. I mean, they could starve if I don't feed them - and I noticed that my email icon had a little number 2 on it. So I harvested my corn and put the iPad down to go finish real world work. And then picked it up again, as I do, because I can't not read email.

And inside was a note from MY EDITOR. She loved my book, she thought it was perfect for a new line of romance books from Adams Media and would like to offer me a contract. 

Cue hysterical crying jag and a husband who thought someone had died - after the year we've had it wouldn't have been all that surprising. And then a loud cowboy whoop - from him, I was still crying - and a giant bear hug because that's the only kind of hugging he does. And a little more crying from me. And I kept hearing Sally Field in my head saying, 'they like me, they really like me'

Today is an extra-special day in that year because that first book now has a sibling! When my first book, What a Texas Girl Wants, was accepted, I had this hare-brained idea that I'd write the books of the heroine's sisters. So I shot off an email to said editor and pitched the idea and - surprise! - she liked the idea. So I not only had one contract, I had three...and two of the books weren't even written! Cue hysterical whathaveidone moment. 

But I took a deep breath and plunged right in. Today the second, What a Texas Girl Needs, is officially 'out there' and it's still feeling a little surreal.

I sold my first - and second and third and fourth! - book in 2012. And I am excited and humbled and so grateful. Mayan-Calendar-world-ending or not, it was a banner year for me...how was 2012 for you?