And after all the waiting and exercise of my patience, I finally got it–the real deal. The Contract. Dah, dah, dummm. How incredibly exciting. What a wonderful opportunity. Such a–Holy Cow, you want it when?!?!

And that’s when I got the very real experience of a deadline. (Dah, Dah Dummm) It was September 12, Saving Gideon was at 67,000 words–a completed first draft. (Key word here, draft.) B&H wanted the completed manuscript by October 1. And at a word count between 80,000 and 85,000 words. Now for those of you out there who are mathematically challenged, that’s 13,000 to 18,000 (THOUSAND) *more* words. In eighteen–yes, eighteen days. That’s a thousand words a day–in addition to a full-time job, a husband, a child, cub scout meetings, guitar lessons, a cat who won’t eat, a dog who needs to lose weight, my birthday, and…life.

Being the consummate professional that I am, I panicked!!

Okay, not really, but I’m sure I was very hard to live with at times. But because I feed everyone in this household and in turn they fear my culinary wrath, they have yet to complain about the two weeks of chaos that followed the signing of the aforementioned contract. (Dah, Dah, Dummm)

But I do believe God was on my side. Maybe He’s who encouraged the boys to tiptoe around the house when I sat down to the computer. And He was responsible for making meals pop out of no groceries. And allowed me to retain as much of my sanity as possible until somehow…somehow…I got the words written and the manuscript sent in. Whew.

And yet…this is a trilogy. For those non-astute with math, that’s 3 books–tres. The next one’s due at the beginning of May 2012. I haven’t written a word on it. Just a one page synopsis to let the publisher know that I have an idea. And not a very detailed one.  That’s 212 days  minus Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, New Years, Valentines Day, and our wedding anniversary. Asa’s birthday, four doctor’s appointments and…uhum, I think I’d better go. I have another book to write! :)

Lots of <3–Amy