Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The Call -- Eve

There are two ways my agent can contact me, by email or phone. Emails are generally reserved for “Passes” on my novel (we don’t call them “rejections” anymore because it sounds harsh and implies that I’ll suffer some deep psychological scarring that will later require extensive and expensive psychotherapy). We also email back and forth if I’m headed for her neck of the woods and want to set up some face-to-face coffee-talk time, or if she wants to check in on my work-in-progress progress, or if I’m procrastinating on making progress on my work-in-progress and just want to say, “Hello.”

But phone calls, well, phone calls are a whole ‘nother story. So, imagine my surprise when the phone rang late Friday afternoon and the creepy monotone Caller ID lady voice didn’t say, “Call from…Mel-lom, Ro-bin” or “Call from…Ass-her, Jay-yuh.” (I’m not being funny. That’s how she says it.) It scared the crap out of me because not only are Jay and Robin the only two people who have ever called me at home, but it was a call from her. Her!

To avoid jinxing anything, allow me to recreate said conversation in Mad Lib format:

“Hello, Eve. It’s me, ___________.”
“Hello there!” I said, ____________.
“____________, a marvelous ___________ over at _________, ________s your ________ and wants to know if you are agreeable to ________.”
“________?? Hmm, let me think. Um, _______!”
“________ thinks that ________ is a little too ________ for the ________ and wonders if you’d consider _______ing the ________ to make _________ a little more _________ so it’s not so _________. What do you think?”
“Hmm, let me think. Um, ________!!!”
“Great, let’s _______ next week and then we’ll _______.”
“________!!”



I spent the weekend ________ing the ________. Jay was out of town, so I made Robin meet me at _________ so she could ________. Oh, Robin _______ed, all right. So, I’ve spent the last 48 hours ________ing and ________ing and I think I’ve finally got my problem _________ed. Now let’s just hope and pray and cross fingers and toes and ______s and ______s that _______ calls back and says, _______. Then for sure I’ll be _______ and ________ and then the three of us will ________ at ________ this weekend when we’re in _______ for the ________ where Jay will be _________ing! Of course, things in publishing don’t always happen that quickly, so it may be _______ before I hear _______ about _______. I’ll keep you posted. Unless _______ happens. Then I’ll be ________.

- Eve


Mermaid Meet-Up: The three of us will be at the L.A. Times Festival of Books this weekend, and we'd love to meet ya! A good meeting spot on Sunday would be the Penguin booth (#813) at 11a.m. where Jay will be signing copies of Thirteen Reasons Why, or at Young Hall 50 at 1p.m. where he'll be on a panel with Robin Benway, Cecil Castellucci, and Michelle Serros called Young Adult Writing: Not Just for Kids.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! When I read about ___, I ____ and ____! That's ___ awesome!

The L.A. Times Book Festival sounds sooo tempting, but I've been gone the last three weekends in a row, and I'll be gone the weekend after this one. I think I'd better stay home and try to relearn my kids' names.

About your agent... She also says they've "declined" to make an offer, which also sounds so much better than the R word.

Anonymous said...

Oh, how I love those phone calls from our agent!

I usually_______ but sometimes ________. Then there was that one time I totally couldn't help myself and had to ________.

But I didn't tell her that.

helgor said...

I'm not ____________ at this game but _________ sounds VERY exciting!!

Yay! ________ Yay!

Stephanie J. Blake said...

O.M.G. congrats! Sounds like some sweet news!

Christy Raedeke said...

Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!
Amazing news.

I'm so happy for you Eve! Can't wait until you can fill in all t hose blanks for us...

Cheers!

Rita said...

___, this is the most hilarious post ever!! (Normally I avoid saying ___ online, but you are killing me!)

_____ing awesome!!

Disco Mermaids said...

You guys are better at creating the Mad Libs than I am.

I have to remember to ______ the ______ until ______ really happens. We can't ______ our ______s before they're ______ in this business!

Thanks for the ________, everybody!

Rita, "______ing awsome"...you are too funny.

Eve

Candace said...

Wow, congrats! I'm not going to do this in a madlib format, b/c they're driving me freakin' insane. I'd love to come out to the LA Times Book Festival but alas, my friends and I are having a get together that day and I don't have a ride to LA either, but y'all have fun!

Disco Mermaids said...

"Call from…Ass-her, Jay-yuh.”

Really!!?? That's hilarious. I must come over some time and have Jay call us just so I can hear that!

Good luck on the revisions! It's gonna be great!

Hugs,
Robin

Brenda said...

Congrats Eve! Exciting news!!

CJ Omololu said...

So _____ing _____! I can't _____to see what ____s!

Maybe, just maybe, the caller ID lady has it right, and the rest of us have been pronouncing Jay's name wrong all this time.

~sarah said...

i SO want to come to the festival and meet you guys and listen to your panel discussion but i've got a lunch i can't get out of - a woman came all the way from india for it! : )

can you post some of the discussion highlights for us later? puh-leeeeese! can ya huh, please, can ya?

Emily Jiang said...

OMG, EVE, CONGRATS!!!!! I'm ____ at reading between the lines, but CONGRATS!!!!

Don Tate II said...

This is too exciting. Believe it or not, I've been waiting for this news from you. I hope all works out in your (and your publisher's -- it's a team thing) favor. Good for you.

Lee Wind, M.Ed. said...

Eve,
Isn't it cool that we're writers and can totally fill in all those pesky ______s and figure out (in our own minds) what _____'in news you got?


Hope it's as freakin' ________ as we all wish for you!

Lee