Friends, I finally made it to England.
The above picture is, of course, at Stonehenge, where we were able to take a magnificent, after-hours tour inside the boundaries.
Being so close to something so ANCIENT is a bit breath-stealing.
Most of our time was spent in London, city of our dreams. I'm going to share a lot more about my trip in my June newsletter, so be sure to subscribe if you haven't already!
Being the geeky debut author I am, I brought along a galley of STORMRISE so I could photograph it in all the places. Here it is in Hyde Park:
And, no, I didn't care one fig about who saw me or what they were thinking. Younger-me would have been too insecure to walk around London taking photos and selfies with a book. Older-me? Couldn't care less. I was having the time of my life, not only celebrating a wonderful, dream-come-true vacation with my husband, but also celebrating the realization of my publishing dream.
I'm so thankful. There are no words to describe the breadth and depth of my thankfulness.
In other, less international news, submissions are now open for Monday's DROP THE NEEDLE critique round, and will be open until 7:00 pm EDT. The submission guidelines are HERE.
And, finally, I was thrilled to receive an email a short while ago from my publicist, letting me know that STORMRISE has been included on PUBLISHERS LUNCH's YA Buzz Titles for Fall/Winter 2019. It's hard to describe what it feels like to be included on a list with names like Ruta Sepetys, Brandon Sanderson, and Veronica Roth.
This is all so new and glorious and I tend to get completely derailed from what I should be spending my time on, which, right now, is story planning. Partly I need to give myself grace--this is, after all, an experience I've never had before, and I need to allow myself to revel and gasp and stare and become distracted. But I also need to learn to take a (very) deep breath and get back to the work at hand. Which is what I'm getting ready to do right now.
No, really.
Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart and soul and big toes, for sticking with me during this journey.
I collectively thanked you all in my acknowledgements, by the way. Because HOW COULD I NOT?
Have a lovely weekend, and I'll see you Monday for DROP THE NEEDLE!
Have a lovely weekend, and I'll see you Monday for DROP THE NEEDLE!
I do wish you had a like button because I like this post so much, I want to let you know. It's great that you had a chance to celebrate this wonderful and exciting part of your writing journey. And what fun that the book make the PW list. So very cool. Definitely you should celebrate and be a little distracted now and then.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Rebecca! Your kind comment counts as a "like". :) We have definitely been learning to take every opportunity to celebrate...and it usually includes champagne. :)
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