Friday, June 02, 2006

The writing life

So I’m fully engaged, strapped in and launching into my new proposal for a 90K novel called RECKLESS –- and yes, it is rather like being launched into a new world, at least it is for this writer –- when FedEx arrives on the doorstep with galleys for DOUBLE DARE for me to check. This is what it's like, because being a writer is a cyclical process. Once things are sent out, you start a long chain of them coming back to you in some form or other, to be looked at all over again. But this is good stuff, it’s very exciting having it arrive this way. A multi tasking brain is in order, to keep the current work simmering at the back of my mind, while I do the task of scrutinising the almost-ready-to-go DOUBLE DARE.

What's really exciting for me, though, is it finally seems real. I was signed by Berkley for the new Heat line back in November, and yet I’ve honestly never really felt it was real, until now. The galleys are laid out in the actual pages and fonts etc of the book; this is the version that goes to reviewers etc. It has the copyright all over it, my name and Penguin Putnam publishing – the largest publisher in New York. OHMIGOD! It is really going to happen! :-))

I confess I’ve spent the last 7 months or so thinking it's one long dream, or an error, and one day I’m going to wake up to an email saying “sorry, wrong author, we meant to send that contract to someone else” or something. Other authors seem to take stuff like this in their stride, promoting themselves widely when they get signed. I'm still far too busy being awestruck by it all. LOL