The Next Day 1 – August 10, 2015

Moneyball. While You Were Sleeping. This Means War. Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason. The Fellowship of the Ring. Mean Girls. Kingsman: The Secret Service. Sabrina. The Skeleton Twins. Legally Blonde. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. And countless episodes of Frasier.

I watched all of those. Since Friday. It was somewhere between Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2 when I realized I had an avoidance problem.

I was awaiting book news, but not just book news. The book news. And if I wrote or cleaned house or walked or sat, or did anything besides watch movies or sleep, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the book news. Actually, that’s not true. I thought about it while I slept. But not while watching While You Were Sleeping! I can get lost in movies, and lose track of time. I can lose track of myself. In most cases, that may not be for the best. This weekend, it was definitely the best coping mechanism I could find.

Well, today I received the long-awaited book news.

“Bethany, we would be so pleased to publish Middle Ground. We’d like to offer you the following contractual terms for worldwide rights to the work:”

That is from an e-mail which followed the most exciting phone call of my life. If you read The Year of Blogging Faithfully, well, faithfully, then you know that months ago a dear friend recommended to me a Christian manuscript submission service, based on the recommendation of her friend, who is an author. I deliberated like crazy whether or not to submit my manuscript to them, mostly because there was a fee involved, and frankly, we didn’t have the money to spare. My husband – the sensible, conservative, frugal (his word, not mine) one – told me to do it. So I did. They accepted me for their list, and pretty shortly thereafter, I received a request for the manuscript from my dream publishers.

No, that’s not true. I didn’t dream of this publishing house. I didn’t dare to dream of them. My dreams were much smaller. But once I was contacted by them? Well, yeah…they are my dream publishers.

Not only were they my dream publishers, the awesome individual who reached out to me, and who has been my contact person/advocate through this entire thing, is exactly the person I want to work with. She calls me her spirit animal, because we are so alike in so many ways. I mean, we bonded over The Walking Dead almost immediately. Hello! But even more than that, she gets me. She understands my vision. And I trust her completely.

And today, my spirit animal, representing my dream publishing house, called to make me an offer.

I’m still in shock. And I’m overwhelmed. I am overwhelmed that they believe in my work. I am overwhelmed that I have this amazing support system of family and friends surrounding me, and none of them actually seemed surprised when I told them the news, because they believe in me so much. And I am overwhelmed by “God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20)

But nothing about any of this means I have reached the end of a journey. Quite the contrary.

This is the next Day 1.