Since the beginning of this year, I've been shopping my 2004 National Novel Writing Month entry around to get an agent (to the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is every November and the goal is to write a 50,000-word from beginning to end). It hasn't been encouraging -- 29 sent, 20 rejections, 1 returned for bad address, and the rest are stuck in No Answer Limbo. Somebody over on Absolute Write had been nudging me into looking at a couple smaller indie presses, one of which she works for as an editor as well as having published through them. Around the beginning of June, I screwed up the courage and put together the submission package and sent it off. Around the time of my last writing group meeting in mid June, I got a request for a full from the submissions editor. It wasn't easy waiting for the response, but she dropped me an email about two weeks later saying she'd forwarded the manuscript to the editor-in-chief, recommending I get a contract. The final decision was up to the EIC, so I put it out of my mind (best I could) and figured I was in for another wait.

The next morning, I received a contract from Aspen Mountain Press for them to publish But I Never Said I Didn't Love You.

The initial adrenaline rush wore off about two hours later, and I was ready to sleep for a week. I'll be needing it, since the hard work is about to begin.