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On August 8th at nine-thirty in the morning I
was up to my elbows in turtle poop. My husband
had taken three of our four children to golf lessons
and I had decided to tackle the revolting and
disgusting job of cleaning the aquarium. My three
year old watched as our beloved turtle, Turdie,
hissed and snapped his indignation at my attempts.
Then the phone rang.
With cordless receiver tucked under my chin I
answered with a curt Hello and kept on scrubbing
away at stubborn turtle excrement. The voice on
the other end of the phone, obviously hesitant
after my abrupt greeting, asked if this was a
good time to talk. I immediately thought that
the person on the other end of the line was most
definitely some saleswoman bent on bending my
ear so I began to describe the revolting task
I was undertaking in the removal of turtle waste.
After a poignant pause, Kathryn Lye from Red Dress
Ink introduced herself and I withdrew my hands
from the filthy aquarium and babbled my apologies.
The editor proceeded to tell me that she liked
my manuscript and I blathered that I was glad
she liked it. Next she said that the other editors
at Red Dress Ink also liked it and I prattled
that I was glad they liked it too. There was a
brief pause where I was waiting for the big BUT
where she would say, we liked it BUT we don't
feel it's right for RDI. No BUT came. Instead
she said that they would like to make me an offer
to purchase Cat's Pajamas.
I sputtered, blubbered, rambled and sobbed then
apologized for crying and cried some more. Kathryn
kindly assured me that she was used to that kind
of reaction. Next she spilled details and I scribbled
as fast as I could. Afterward I noticed my writing
was unintelligible but I do remember some of the
information she gave me. First they would send
me a contract (oh my God!) and after I signed
the contract they would send me a check (omigod,
omigod!!). The next step would be some minor revisions
and she needed to be sure that I could do those
in less than 90 days. I laughed and told her,
that I'd written the whole damn thing in six weeks
so it wouldn't be a problem. She assured me that
the changes would be very minor. RDI hoped to
have my book on bookshelves either late 2004 or
early 2005. Yes, I could use my real name but
we'd need to come up with a new name for the book
because Cat's Pajamas wouldn't work. I
confessed to being title-challenged and she assured
me that it was something we'd work on together.
I babbled that I'd recently lost my critique partner
and she said I didn't need a critique partner
because I now had an editor. More tears. Many,
many more tears.
After hanging up the phone I did a whooping hollering
happy dance around the house that involved much
screaming tangled with hysterical laughter. When
my three year old asked what was wrong, I told
him that mom just sold a book. His enthusiastic
reaction, "Oh. Can I have some cranberry
juice?" I shrieked, "Yes! From now on
you get the real thing! No more generic cranberry
juice for you!" He looked at me like I'd
lost my mind. Which, in all fairness, was probably
true.
I spent an hour phoning and emailing. Afterward,
still with a goofy grin on my face, I returned
to turtle poop detail. In the weeks that have
followed I've scrubbed toilets and cleaned
the garage.
In the end, simultaneously, nothing and everything
had changed.
Wendy Roberts is a member of GVC.
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