I'm getting published!

I've been AWOL from this blog for quite a while. But for good reason.

Sendek: The Magic Wakes is getting published!

So how did this happen? Well, it has been a torturous waiting period even after I knew something was going to happen. The first week of March I received the following email:

Charity,

You have done an excellent job revising this manuscript, and I am very glad you resubmitted it. I would like to offer you a contract for publication of Sendek in our 2013 line-up. If this is agreeable to you, please let me know and I will put together a contract for you to review.

I hope to hear from you soon.

This made me VERY happy. And then I realized I couldn't do anything about it until I was cut from ABNA. A weird month followed. I flipped from hoping to get cut to wanting to make it another round. Can you blame me now for having a hard time writing? I just couldn't decide what I wanted.

So I prayed and left it up to someone else.

The end of March I was cut from ABNA, but the feedback was so good I had twinges of indecision again. Maybe I should keep trying for an agent?

Whatever, I emailed the acquisitions editor the very day I was cut to let her know I was free from any obligations.

Then I waited another agonizingly long week for a reply. When it came it was to give me a date that the contract would show up for me to look over. That day was an entirely different roller coaster ride.

I was ecstatic for several hours. And then I crashed. Who was I to know what I was looking at with this contract? What if I was signing everything away and didn't even know it? Yes, I was getting editors to help me, but what was I REALLY signing up for?

The truth was two fold. Part of me was still holding on to that agent dream, and the other part of me is still an insecure teenager despite the growing number of candles on my birthday cakes.

I set the contract aside and left for spring break. I had waited years, and now I needed it to wait so I could calm down and think rationally.

When I looked at it again, my hubby and I wrote down any questions we had and I called WiDo. Bruce Gowan walked me through everything and was so nice about it all. In the end I just felt GOOD about the whole thing. It was finally my turn to stop fearing success and take things into my own hands.

What am I the most excited about? 

• Having a team of people help me make Sendek the best story it can be and then helping me spread the word about it. 
• People will finally get to read the whole story. I hope they like it as much as I do.
• I don't feel like I gave anything up by choosing a smaller publisher. In fact, I think this will end up being a much better choice for me and my family.  

In preparation, I created a Facebook Page for my novel. Please go "Like it". When I get an ISBN I'll create a Goodreads page as well. Also, if you want more information about this process as I go through it, check out my main blog Charity's Writing Journey.

What kind of things do you like to see on pages like that?