On Friday my agent and I finished revisions of my book and she sent it out - I adore her for that alone, I hate writing pitch letters. The expectation was to sit tight for a few weeks, let everyone read and get back to us, and have a leisurely discussion about offers with anyone that wanted to make an offer. So I was sitting at my desk last night, drinking rum and trying to figure out PhD course requirements when my agent got a phone call. And then called me. And Business happened. And now my book has a publisher.
It's probably a good thing that I was drinking rum; I'm so uptight normally that if I hadn't been we would still be weighing the pros and cons.
I'm not sure how to react, other than be suddenly nervous that the IRS will come swooping in before I figure out the tax regulations that apply to students living abroad. And I'm not sure how to tell people without it sounding like bragging. Though I do have to be smug, just a little, about one thing - the undergrad professor that I asked about publication at the end of senior year told me that I'd never get this specific book published, and there was no way I'd manage to get any book published within five years of graduating, so I shouldn't try before I turned 30. Well, someone just offered a pre-empt for this book, I graduated 16 months ago, and I'm just a month shy of 25.
"There really is no joy in life greater than doing those things that people say you cannot do." At this point, almost everything I've done in the past two years I've been told beforehand that I'd never do it, so sit down, hush up, and stop being a nuisance. I don't need them to know they were wrong, I can pretty much guarantee that none of the people that told me not to try remember those conversations now. But it feels good to know that my faith in myself wasn't completely misplaced.
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