The waiting part of publishing goes on for so long that an author can be lulled into the sense that her book will never actually be published.

First come writing, revising, submission, and rejection, all of which take forever.  Then there’s the will-they-or-won’t-they? dance with a potential editor and the acquisitions process.  Successfully land a book contract, and more revisions follow.  Then line edits.  Then copy edits.  It’s been over a year since my first book sold, and the e-mails from my editor, while ever timely, have been few and far between, relaxed and mysterious, giving me the sense that while there are deadlines, there’s no real rush.

Then I turned in my copy edits. Overnight, publication went from theoretical and distant to real and impending, and the curves started coming at me faster. My editor is in touch much more often.  Here are a few of the things that have happened:

1) Dedication and Acknowledgments!  Technically, this happened during copy edits.  You know how you dream about giving your Oscar speech, wherein you thank all the people who helped you get where you are today?  Yeah, this is the part where you get to DO that.  It feels pretty fantastic.

2) Blurbs!  Blurbs are those quotes you see on books, where an established author or other celebrity has decided to back the work by saying something like “Genius… Intricately plotted… If you only read one book this year about meat thermometers, make it this one.” Seeing blurbs about your own work, let me tell you, is very heady stuff.  They’re little jewels of solid proof that authors you admire believe your work is praiseworthy – to the point where they’re willing to praise it in public.  Some authors have to go after their own blurbs; in my case, my editor and agent have made the requests for me.  I told them which authors I’d love to have in my corner, and the responses I’ve gotten back have been amazingly kind and generous.  Short version: blurbs are AWESOME. I might have memorized mine.  Really.

3) ISBN!  You know, that wonderful number that identifies a book? I have one now.  HOLLA!

4)  Library of Congress! GROUNDED is now catalogued there. I’m on the record, y’all.

5) 1st Pass Pages!  This part is so exciting. It’s a PDF that comes from the typesetter’s, and it shows what the final, copy-edited book will look like on the inside.  Font, style, layout, title page, imprint logo, chapter headings, dedication and acknowledgments… Opening the PDF was one of those magic moments, right up there with finding out that Scholastic wanted to buy the book in the first place.  Seeing my book turned into a BOOK… and not just any book, but a beautiful book, printed in beautiful font… I can’t even be articulate about it.  I’m borrowing a Britishism, because it’s better than anything I’ve got: I’m gobsmacked.  I open the PDF a couple of times a day, to make sure it’s still real.  And it is.  And it’s BEAUTIFUL. Everyone working on GROUNDED is so talented and skilled and lovely.  I’m grateful beyond words.

So that’s the kind of month it’s been.  Crazy awesome, and everythinghappeningfast.  Stay tuned for jacket art!  I haven’t seen so much as a glimpse of it yet, and I’m CAPSLOCK LEVEL EXCITED.  Now that I’ve seen the inside of GROUNDED I’m waiting with bated breath to find out what the outside will be.  I thought I’d be very nervous about the cover, but instead, I’m just psyched.  I have complete faith that the Scholastic team that has been nothing but amazing will continue to stun me with their utter brilliance. I CAN’T WAIT.

But you know what? I don’t mind waiting.  I’ve got lots of practice.  I should appreciate every little bit of waiting I get now, because there’s not very much of it left.  Summer 2015 will be here before I know it.

Vroom, vroom, VROOM…