This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
My agent rang to ask me if I would go and see a publisher that afternoon. I was in bed at the time, wallowing in depression, which I was trying to recover from.
I jumped out of bed, showered, changed and was in the car in a New York minute.
Then I met with the publisher and we chatted as though the meeting was no big deal.
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At the end of the meeting, she asked me what I wanted, and I answered, ‘A career.’
And then I went home.
Nothing happened.
My agent told me to be patient, which she knows isn’t a particular strength of mine. So I was patiently impatient.
After a month I figured it wasn’t going to happen with this particular publisher, and while I was disappointed, it only served to make me more determined.
This was what I wanted as my career; that much I was sure of, as I had book ideas pouring from me.
Then my agent rang, ‘Be near your phone, we might have a deal.’
So I strapped my phone to my ear with sticky tape and went about my day, ignoring the strange looks, they wouldn’t look at me like that when they knew I was going to be published, I justified to myself.
Then at 5.45pm, after business hours, I got the call with a two-book deal, which was exciting because things were tough in 2009, and according to the powers that be, two book deals were almost unheard of.
I accepted, and there I was, an author.
And then I cooked dinner, because first come book deals, next comes Cottage Pie.
My first international book deal was super exciting, as this was the news I had an offer from the UK. It was a long, formal, very eloquent letter from my now publisher about why she wanted to publish my work, and I felt so thrilled, I did a little dance in the office where I worked at the time.And then I went home and did the washing, because first comes international book deals, and then come the washing.
Life is equal parts mundane and exciting but I do have that career I dreamed about and still so many ideas for books.
Picture Perfect by Kate Forster is out now.