One Small Step At A Time

Oh my God, I’m so excited I don’t know what to do with myself, and can you believe it? My internet just freaked out, so I’m writing this in Word, feels, weird, haha. I know maybe I shouldn’t get myself all worked up about it but I can’t help myself. If this goes all the way, if this thing works out, I’m gonna be the happiest person on Earth, I swear to God, or maybe I should swear to something I actually believe in… I’ll swear it on my own life!

I’ll be the happiest, most beaming, most thrilled and excited person in the whole wide world!

So, wanna guess what it’s all about? I think you can guess. I think you can make some really qualified guesses, too. I just don’t think you’re ever going to guess the exact thing.

Okay, I got it, I’m gonna calm down for a second, let you know what I’m all up to and everything.

Well, first of all, I wasn’t going to tell until I knew more, but I just can’t keep it a secret anymore, so I gotta let it out, even though nothing is sure yet, absolutely not. I shouldn’t say that anything is settled, I mean, they haven’t even looked at it yet; for Christ’s sake (ahum, my own life’s sake), I haven’t even finished it yet. But they said half-done, and they’d be willing to take a look at it, I mean, come on! That totally rocks!

Nothing at all is sure yet, but hell, I’m an optimist. Lemme tell you what I’m going all crazy about, and all you fellas out there who are all into writing will understand why I’m being so excited.

Allright. There’s this company in the US that deals with finding publicists for writers, even those who are previously unpublished – I mean real publicists, the traditional kind, the ones that take a look at your work and if they wanna publish it, they pay you! Not the self-publishing kind of thing, where you pay for it all by yourself and do fees and stuff and all that just to watch nobody buy your books and you end up having to buy them all yourself for an insane price. Not that kind. The old-fashioned kind. If successful, they get paid, and they get like ten percent of what you sell for.

Allright. (I’m saying it again and I’m aware of it. Gotta tie my clauses together, right?) Allright. So, I took the form on their site, writing a bit about myself and about my book, you know, the Nanowrimo one? Yeah. And I just got an e-mail back from them that they’d like to see my material for a review. If they like it and think it’s going to sell, they’ll help me finish and edit my writing, then find me a suitable publicist. Who knows how long it’s gonna take if it ever even goes that far, but still, it’s hell lot more than I can do on my own. Besides, I want my book published the way I wrote it, in English, you know?

Well, if they don’t think it’s good enough or that it’s not of any commercial value, they’ll let me know, and delete everything I ever sent to them so that I can seek my fortune someplace else.

You might be thinking all this sounds totally tallulah, but I’ve checked this company out thoroughly, and they seem to be very serious and have a nice reputation. They’ve been very professional to me this far, I really hope I’m not going to be scammed or anything, but hell, then at least I’d be taking my chances.

I can’t believe they’re interested in my work!

I never even thought I’d make it through the first, you know, filter or whatever. And here I am, staring at this email, and it just feels insane. In a good way, you know?

WARNING! THE POET IS ABOUT TO LET HERSELF DREAM FOR A WHILE!

Yeah, cause this is like, one of the top things that has happened to me lately. Let me just dream for a second, okay? Let me just dream, drift off into that imaginary cloud and picture how it would all be like, if I managed my way into the writer’s business. And this soon…! I’m just bloody 20 years old!

What if I actually got to publish my book…? And what’s even better, what if I actually got paid for publishing my book?

The idea is so wild and so great that I just wanna toss it down on the ground and stomp on it; that’s how much I already hate it, how badly I don’t wanna be let down.

Okay. So I think I know what they’re going to say. Or what I’m hoping they’ll say. That what I’ve written isn’t finished (of course) and that it needs to be extrapolished (of course! Haven’t even attempted to edit it yet!). But hopefully – hopefully – and there’s a little flare of hope and anticipation burning in there, in my chest somewhere – hopefully, they’ll say I’ve got potential. That would mean the world. That would mean everything in the whole world.

Even the fact that they’re going to read through my entire works, or at least a couple of chapters of it (but I think I’ll benefit out of sending all of it), and give me some sort of response for it, that’s great! That someone professional are willing to do that, I mean someone unpartial, someone from the outside, whose job it is to assess how good a piece of writing is.

Hahaha, I can’t help but laughing, but if – and just if – I mean, I know that I gotta be realistic about it – if this goes all the way, oh my God, then I know exactly what I’m gonna do.

I’m gonna head straight to my teacher’s office and rub it in his face that a student he failed on the English writing exam, apparently writes well enough to get herself published in the US.

Please, please be excited along with me…!

You’re the only one I’ve told this far except for my Ruby, who was very sceptical I think, so please, please be happy for me!

I’ve been through the first step, right? I filled out that form. And now I’m past that step. That’s one little step. Not much, right? And now all I gotta do is take the next step, right? All I gotta do is send them a copy of my writing, protecting my copyright of course… and answer two more questions they had in store for me… and then wait. Then there’s nothing more I can do before they get back in touch with me, which they said would take between 7-10 days after they receive it. Pretty quick huh?

And then, when they get back to me, we’ll just have to see what they say. But if I get past that step too, oh my God, then all I have to do is to write the last chapters of the book still unwritten, look over the whole thing and edit it like hell, and then that step too is taken care of. What if I ever get this far?

Wouldn’t it be amazing?

Please, please, will you all be happy for me?

I love you guys and thank you all for pushing me through Nanowrimo. Without you this would never have happened! YOU ROCK!!

Like, 1 764 646 976 484 843 hugs and kisses to ALL OF YOU from the POET

TRULY YOURS!!