Juggling a writing career and a day job is never easy, and never was that more evident than when I received The Call.
If you’re never heard an author talk about The Call before, it is the moment when an author finds out that they’re going to be published. Usually the news is delivered via telephone, hence the name.
My version of The Call story happened in August 2015. I was a month into a new job working as an editor on the breaking news desk of now sadly shuttered digital news publication in New York City. My job was to cover the afternoon shift, sending out reporters to cover breaking news as it happened and editing articles our rewrite reporter would begin working on.
This is where I should probably pause to explain a few things:
Although I had signed with my agent, Emily, in October 2012, we hadn’t had any success selling a book yet. I’d been casting about for a few years, attempting to figure out what might be a selling proposal, but I hadn’t quite hit the mark.
However, that year I’d struck upon the idea to write a historical romance series centered around three friends who were all living and working in Victorian London. I wrote the first novella and had synopses ready for the next in what I was calling the Governess series.
I tried to keep a pretty clear divide between my day job and my writing life, which meant that generally I did not do any writing-related work during my newsroom shift.
At this newsroom, we often communicated via Gchat, so I always had my email up.
Around 4:30 that afternoon, a fire broke out on 13th Street near Union Square in Manhattan. I sent a stringer downtown to check it out, and my rewrite reporter began to make calls to the FDNY’s press office to confirm any details he could.
Weirdly the most perfect stock photo for a story ever.
Then, at 4:43 p.m., an email popped into my personal inbox from Emily that made my heart just about stop.
Yes, I still have the email. No, I am never deleting it. Obviously.
When your agent lets you know that there’s good news, you make time for the call no matter what—even when things are literally on fire.
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