I was sitting on the cabin porch when I got The Call, which in my case, was not actually a call but an email—Thank God, because I hate talking on the phone and the cabin has really bad cell service.
(The plastic sheeting pictured here was down when I actually got the email, because it was summer. However, today it is not anything close to summer so the plastic is up in the photo.)
In the spirit of thorough and riveting journalism, I give you the actual chair I was sitting in when I got the email.
In order to evoke the summery feeling of the actual day I received the email, here is a photo taken of a hummingbird at the porch feeder (plastic sheeting removed from windows).
When I got the email containing the offer from Skyhorse, the biggest thing that had happened to me at that point in my writing career was when Huffington Post wrote to ask for permission to feature a blog I had written on The Good Men Project. When I got that email, I made a high pitched “eeeeeeee!” sound and then started yelling, “mother f*cking snakes on the mother f*cking plane!”
I had never even seen the movie, Snakes on a Plane, there was not a single plane in the article I had written, nor was there a snake in the vicinity, so it was an admittedly odd choice to yell. That didn’t stop me from yelling it over and over.
While one might suspect that I would yell some terrifically absurd phrase or make another unspecified vowel sound when I received the offer email, it wasn’t the case. I completely lost my words—which, if you are opposed to profanity, you might consider a good thing—but if you know me IRL you know how rare and unexpected this is. I am an over-talker, a too-much-talker, and a chronic excessive speaker. But the subject line, “Offer on your Book: Girl” took all those words I had and sucked them into an abyss.
I swatted my SigO’s elbow, or tugged his arm, or something along that order to get his attention, and then turned my screen so he could read it himself. (Note: original title for the memoir was Girl.)
My SigO was actually able to form words—first why-are-you-swatting-me type words, then happy, excited words. Pretty soon I was able to utter Oh my God, Oh my God oh My God and eventually recovered my ability to speak in somewhat coherent sentences. I leave that to you to decide if it is a good thing.
