No, seriously.

It's August 7th, and Natalie and I are at home, chilling. I'm writing when the phone rings. I don't answer the phone, so she does... and brings it to me. "Here," she says, eyes gleaming.

I take it, wondering if it's my bank or something. But no. It's L'Agent. "Tessa? Hi, how are you?"

Me: "I'm good."

L'Agent: "You're about to be better."

We had an offer. A really good one. The kind that I could have accepted gleefully. But L'Agent says she's going to notify the other editors to drum up more interest and offers. That's when the word "auction" is first uttered.

I pass through the weekend in a fit of paranoid bliss. Which I'm sure was interesting to watch. On Monday, I talk to L'Agent again and she updates me on the different places interested in maybe offering. All I really hear is "multiple houses" and that she's setting a deadline of Tuesday, August 18th at 5pm for all initial offers. She'll call me right after.

Me: "Um, I'm flying to England on that Thursday morning."

L'Agent: "Well..... we'll manage. Somehow."

Fast forward a week. A harrowing, impossible week. At the close, we have two really awesome offers, and the next step is me talking to the editors on the phone. L'Agent tries getting in contact with everyone to schedule a time, and by Wednesday night when Natalie and I were driving into KC with our dog to get him settled I didn't have anything nailed down. *stress*

But after some brief phone tag, L'Agent and I talk. I have a phone meeting the next morning at 8:30 with Editors #1, and at 9:30 with Editor #2.

And of course, I'm leaving my parents' house at 10am to drive to the airport for my international flight.

I barely sleep. Mom is up early to make blueberry waffles, which I can barely eat because I'm a bundle of anxiety. At 8:25 I retire upstairs for some privacy... only to realize my cell phone gets no reception.

*panic*

I end up outside in the driveway where I finally have three bars. It's a couple minutes after time, and I think I might puke. I've got my notebook and pen, my phone... and my parents dog wandering around. (I'm getting slightly nauseated just thinking about it again!)

The phone rings.

And wow, I have to say, it was amazing. We talked for about 40 minutes, and when I was done, my most clear thought was my career will be safe in their hands. What a happy place to end up! And I had 15 minutes to chill (ha!) before the next call.

I managed to find a more comfortable spot to sit and wait. I didn't manage to calm down before the second call came in. While I talked, Natalie started sneaking around taking pictures of me. Hiding behind the car and all that. This second conversation was only about 20 or 25 minutes. It felt even faster. When it was over, I had no coherent thoughts. Just *GLEE*

I went inside, almost passed out, babbled at my mom and Natalie, then called m_stiefvater to scream "GAHHH!"..... and we packed into the car and fled to the airport.

The amazing thing is that I knew what my decision was then. I knew. In my gut, which is terrifying to me, since I tend to put more emphasis on my rational self. It wasn't rational, it was all instinct and emotion and... it still felt so absolutely right.

But of course, it doesn't work that way in this kind of situation. From the Kansas City airport, I called L'Agent and told her about the phone calls. She was going to talk to the editors again, and keep doing what she does: negotiate. Hopefully I'd have internet in England and be able to communicate that way... if not, I could manage to find a way to call. This is a picture of me on the phone with her at the airport. Do you SEE the yellow bruising around my eyes? SO STRESSED.


You can probably imagine that it wasn't easy to relax into the airplane. I had no contact with L'Agent or internets for about 24 hours. It was harrowing. At least I had this whole other country to distract me.

I needed it, too, because the rest of the process dragged out for the whole week. More information kept coming in, L'Agent and I went back and forth every day, emailing about what I needed and what she wanted from the deal, all kinds of things that would have been so much easier to talk about on the phone... Meanwhile, I'm running around with Natalie, her sister and brother-in-law (now), my parents through , Cornwall, Glastonbury and Avebury... until finally everything was as final as it could be, and I had to pronounce the Final Decision.

It was Thursday, August 28th, and I was at a fancy wedding. Here's Natalie's post about the wedding itself.

The ceremony was at 4pm, and the first thing I did when it was over was accept the gin and tonic my Dad handed me. There were the usual wedding things: pictures, socializing, laughter. The reception began, and was lovely. There was champagne and wine, delicious food, speeches, and more laughter.

Then it was 9pm. I couldn't put it off any longer, so I went up to Natalie's Dad's room and begged to use his international cell phone. I called L'Agent.... and got her voicemail. I promised to call back in twenty minutes.

*panic*

But when I called back, she answered on the first ring, totally waiting for me. I was yelling, thanks to the pounding ABBA from the reception downstairs, possibly incoherent thanks to tiredness, alcohol, and stress... but L'Agent was fabulous, we chatted for a couple of minutes, solidifying everything.

The decision was made.

I went downstairs and danced my ass off.

The moral of the story: if you want your book to go to auction, plan to be out of the country. The universe likes it better that way.

I've wanted to write about this for a couple of months, but have also struggled with how. My tendency is to write about heavily emotional moments in a mythological, metaphorical sort of way that conveys the emotion, but not the facts.

But with this, I want to remember the details.

It was January 4th, of this year. A Sunday. I was walking my dog as the sun set, and I came up the hill through a neighborhood of split-level houses and rounded the corner. Grendel sat at the edge of the sidewalk and I paused to tell him he was good for not running into the street. I looked up, and I was totally alone at a crossroads. Down the hill was the park I'd just circled, behind me was the same sidewalk I've pounded over for two years now. To my left, an empty cul de sac, and before me, the path home.

I'd been doing a good job not thinking about the thing most prominent in my mind: Monday was the deadline the agent reading my wip had given for when she'd get back to me. I hadn't heard anything in two weeks, since she wrote acknowledging she'd received it and was going on vacation for Christmas.

Walking my dog and writing are two things I do that have become completely intertwined. There's nothing like tying up the sneakers and watching Grendel bounce and spaz out in anticipation while I get his leash and start up the iPod, and nothing like the cool twilit air, the press of shoes against concrete, the park, the wind, the rush of cars, for getting my imagination rolling. When I'm stuck, I go out and walk the dog. Most of the time, I come home with a solution.

When finishing up the wip, called then DEATHSAFE, there were a few days I took more than one walk because I was writing so hard. The whole book happened with mini-breaks, where I was alone with myself, my dog, my music, my book, and the world.

So I stood there on that corner, with Grendel craning his neck around to figure out why we weren't moving forward. I stood there and knew with this horrible certainty that I'd written the very best book I could possibly have written. I've written a bunch of novels. Adult, younger, fantasy, historical, contemporary... five complete that I can think of off the top of my head. Some were good, some blew (chunks, and not small ones*), but and probably they were all the best I could do at the time. I learned from them, pushed on, wrote another one, learned more.

But I knew, right then, that I hadn't been lazy. I hadn't cut corners. I'd been cruel and severe with myself and the story. I'd deleted funny lines that were out of character for my first person narrators. I'd ignored the desire to wax poetical when it wasn't necessary and I listened to my instincts instead of my ego.

The book was the best I could do.**

If I was ever going to sign with a Dream Agent, it was now.

But if she passed - she was passing on the best I could do.

It was this heady, awful, blissful place of being both free and more terrified than I'd ever been for myself. I knew I'd keep going if she said no. I'd send out queries to my top tier and hope for the best. I'd keep writing. I'd revise. I'd write a new novel, or ten new novels. I wasn't worried about not writing. I wasn't worried, exactly, about failure.

I was horrified because there was nothing I could do about it. I was with my dog, standing there, stupidly, on the corner of the sidewalk, and there was nothing. to. do. I'd done it already. I'd let go. And I hadn't even noticed doing so.

I almost sat down. I nearly let my knees buckle so I could sit there with my dog, watching the light become more grey, watching the shadows stretch across the street.

My lungs felt cold and empty, and waiting-ulcer-burn calmed down. Everything dropped out of my body, melting through the rubber soles of my shoes.

There was nothing to do. Except keep walking. So I did.



* nataliesee and I watched Bablyon A.D. on Saturday morning, and when the credits began we both stared for a moment. I finally said, "That blew." And Natalie nodded slowly, "Chunks." I sighed, unable to motivate myself past the awfulness, until Natalie continued, "and not small ones!" I laughed a LOT. I have a funny lady.

** I've made it better since then. Because the best I could do then should never be the best I can do now. The day my craft isn't improving is the day I walk away from the computer.

Well. I turned my revisions in to Super Agent last night. And now I'm faced with a strange lack of purpose.

I'm sure something will show up to renew my work ethic, but today there will be not a single word of fiction written, and that's rather scary. But in a good way. Sort of.

HERE: via kellyrfineman, William Shakespeare's Twenty-Five Random Things About Me, which made me pee.

No, really.

( I'm saving the author's genius behind a cut, too. )

~ I am extremely happy to announce that I am now (like, right now) officially a client of Laura Rennert's at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

~ Criminal Minds.  Enough said.

~ I finished a book! This is awesome because I have been having trouble relaxing enough to read for the last few months. Especially since Thanksgiving. The book was Glass Houses, the first book in the YA Morganville Vampires series by Rachel Caine. (I'm a fan of her adult series, the Weather Wardens, too.)  

I'm sure I was able to read it during my haze of stress because it was so smoothly written. I was drawn in immediately to the unique character and situation. There's not much surprising about the vampires themselves, and I found that a welcome relief from books that try to be too clever with their mythology and end up losing my interest.

The protagonist is Claire, a sixteen-year-old college freshman in Morganville, TX, a small town she doesn't realize is run by vampires. But most of the characters are human, including the main villain and the love interest(s). The vampires are a creepy background complication that raise the stakes (ha ha) with the promise of blood and violence. I was surprised a few times, in that gentle, "oh, that totally makes sense!" sort of way, as opposed to the shocking "I never would have seen that coming" way.

I haven't had such a pleasant reading experience in a while. Overall sweet, and a little creepy, with one raging-hot kissing scene - I'm definitely looking forward to reading the next installment, The Dead Girls' Dance.

Plus, Ms. Caine just found out that the series hit number 7 on the NYT Book Review of Children's Best Sellers. Congratulations!!!