Yeah, Barb. Now ... more waiting.

Aw, honey. I'll sit with you and hold your hand (not while you're sitting on them, although I might sneak a grope).

Deep breaths, babe. Deep breaths.

I'm so used to waiting at this point, it's like ... whatever. Just someone decide one way or another!

And I do hate it when someone has it exclusively and keeps it this long. It's just ... rude.

Oh,they've had it exclusively?

Flag on the play, mofo. Not cool.

Yeah.

What's even worse is I really should have just fucking finished it while I was waiting. And I didn't.

The plan was, since their teen line was new, and I have published with Harlequin, we'd send the partial there and see if they wanted it. (Mostly because I can submit a partial there. And initially my agent thought I would need to write the whole book to sell it elsewhere, without a track record in YA.)

I figured, if they don't want it, we'll throw it at everyone else, especially after my agent read it and said it was going to be fine to submit the partial. But this has been since ... April?

Which is not that long in the publishing world, I know, but still.

HQN has had Thirteen, as a full, since... May, I think? But that's a different sitch altogether. I submitted it based on conversation with an editor at last year's National. Lovely Agent has put in a couple of messages to see if they'll get back to her before Armageddon.

One thing I will give myself credit for is that when I was acquiring, I never kept *agented* material that long. Mostly because I knew they would call up and harangue me, but still.

They never threatened to show photos of you in Cancun, did they? Because that's how Ari gets Dana Gordon.

I've found I've started thinking about the plot of the sequel to my current story. I suppose that isn't too bad since I can refine the seeds that are already there. One thing for sure, different main character.

I thought I edited myself into a continuity error yesterday, but it looks like I'm okay. With is good, because my wife delights in catching me in a continuity error. I thing she got me two times in the rough draft.

Actually editing has a terrifying capacity for the generation of continuity errors. Especially for stuff that shows up like twenty chapters later.

I feel like I should give you all my number and you can text me at regular intervals to say, "are you writing? WHY AREN'T YOU WRITING?"