Below I expunged all the things that haven’t come my way lately, and do you know why? Because things were brewing for reals and I am—no joke—about to tell you some good news that I was hinting at before:

I just got a formal offer on my first original tween novel from Simon & Schuster!

It’s not a WFH! It’s my own book, for the first time, AND I will be publishing it under my actual name!

I pitched the project and wrote three sample chapters for what I thought would be a paperback and turns out they’re publishing it in hardcover! Hardcover! Now I have to finish writing it…! They’re planning for it to tentatively come out in Fall 2009!

Yow!

I’m exhausted from all these exclamation points.

The formal offer came today around 4pm. I haven’t responded yet. I’m doing this without a literary agent so talk of advances and subsidiary rights and royalty rates are swimming in my head and I hope I handle this all okay.

And I know I’ve been secretive about this, but it’s only because I’m superstitious and couldn’t talk about it before it felt more “real.” I’ve actually been working on this since late summer. I got lucky and was recommended to pitch for a truly awesome editor and she has really made this happen. I love her! I love Simon & Schuster! I love books in general! I love 13-year-old girls! (Um, that’s how old my narrator is.)

I’m sure I’ll talk more about the book, including details, and how this whole process happened and works out without having an agent very soon. I’ll even tell you guys the title 😉

In the meantime I have to sit down and try to breathe. I feel faint.