Last Tuesday, Aug. 19, I received a note from the fantabulous Dana
Hopkins, assistant editor/editorial assistant, Blaze and American Romance, that
she and Senior Editor Kathleen Scheibling were discussing my books (The Surgeon and The Cowgirl, which made
it to the top 10 of So You Think You Can Write, and a second cowgirl book, The Lawyer and the Cowgirl – of course
these are working titles!).
Friends and I took out our secret decoder rings (think
Little Orphan Annie from A Christmas
Story) to decipher what this might mean. No clear conclusion.
Fortunately for me, I had a ton of fun things planned for
the week, including a lunch-time tea on Thursday with my sister-in-law and two
friends to look at pictures from a tea tour we’d taken in northern England and
the Lake District. I turned off my phone – only polite thing to do.
After I got home, I needed to get work done (I’m a
self-employed writer/editor) before going off to rehearse for Barefoot in the Park (more fun
distractions). A quick email check. There was one from Dana asking to set up a
time to “chat” – no need for a decoder ring. That had to me THE CALL, right?
Then I noticed three missed calls from … Canada. Yikes! I
redialed twice but hung up – cold feet worse than asking a guy out on Sadie
Hawkins day (Google it – it’s a thing).
I emailed Dana back and said I was available (I didn’t add
exclamation points or anything) and moments later the phone rang. I said: This
must be Dana J
She told me … who knows what … I heard two-book contract …
my brain stopped working and my mouth went on auto-pilot. I did ask questions –
they may even have been intelligent questions.
Then, I got off the phone and danced around my office, much
to the annoyance of the cat. Back to the computer to email everyone I know,
followed by days of calling friends and family!
Finding a home for my cowgirls at American Romance is particularly
sweet because The Surgeon and The Cowgirl
was started just after my mother passed away four years ago. I like to think of
this book as hers.
