Book Deal!!!

Yes, it's true, I'm going to be an author.

I have a two book deal with Nimbus Publishing.

BUSGIRL BLUES will be published in the Fall 2014 and JUST JESSE will follow in 2015.

Oh my, where to begin. Well, certainly not at the beginning because that's way too boring.

Here are the dirty details...

JUST JESSE was on submission with two different agents for a combined total of sixteen months.

I received over twenty rejections from publishers.

I had two editors ask for a revise and resubmit (neither led to the above deal).

I had one YES!

If you feel like you've been on submission forever and you think no one is ever going to like your work, I'm here to tell you it will happen. IT WILL HAPPEN.

Keep writing. Join a critique group. Keep writing. Enter contests. Keep writing. Send your work out into the world. Keep writing.

It's okay to get rejections. It's okay for editors not to fall in love with your work. It's okay to feel crappy about it sometimes. It only means that your book hasn't met the right editor yet. There is a lid for every jar, my friend. 

My recent success with BUSGIRL BLUES on Wattpad was a turning point. It gave me the confidence I needed to actually try and get myself published.

I sent BUSGIRL BLUES to Nimbus, hoping a small publisher who focuses on Atlantic Canada might be interested in my coming of age novella set in my home town of Chester, Nova Scotia.

A view of the front harbour in Chester. Isn't it gorgeous!
globeandmail.com

Penelope J., an editor from Nimbus (and my new bff) called me the end of May (on my niece's fifteenth birthday to be exact). She'd spent the day reading BUSGIRL BLUES and had just finished. She then proceeded to talk about the characters like they were real people who lived down the street and sometimes popped in to borrow sugar. She used words like; thrilled, excited, loved...

Then she made an offer to publish! I almost dropped the phone into the soapy sink full of dishes. Next we talked about JUST JESSE, so she asked for that too.

The next week I had a two book offer staring at me in the face.

That's right, people, my jar had found its lid.

Thank you so much to everyone who has ever read this blog, or read one of my stories on wattpad, or favorited one of my tweets, or smiled at me, or shared their Oreos at recess when my mom sent me with yogurt, or breathed oxygen...I think you see where I'm going with this.

Yes, I'm in love with the world.

Keep writing. Keep hoping. Keep dreaming. 

IT WILL HAPPEN!

And for God's sake, buy my books when they come out.

Enough talk, time to celebrate!