Ordinary Days | I got a book deal ... and life goes on

In the nearly five years that I’ve been writing this column, I’ve been in one stage or another of what I’ve long hoped would be the road to book publication. At various points along the way, I’ve been absorbed in writing (which sometimes feels like squeezing water from a brick), reading about the craft of writing, researching agents and publishers, writing query letters, sending those letters to agents and racking up piles of rejection letters. 

Then, in late August, the same morning both kids had their school orientations, I finally, finally got the news I’d been hoping for — I’d been offered a two-book deal from a division of HarperCollins! My first book (tentatively titled “The Hideaway”) will come out in April of next year, and book two will come out a year later. I’d been waiting for that moment for so long, it was almost anticlimactic. One minute I was sitting on the floor of my kitchen listening to my agent tell me the offer came — wrapping my head around the fact that THISISHAPPENING! — and the next minute, I was brushing the kids’ teeth, wiping jelly off their faces and shuffling them out the door to meet their new teachers. And life goes on. 

So what happened next? I waited (more waiting?!) for three months before receiving the actual contract and signing it, thereby making it official. When I signed the papers, my friend Anna texted me various “excited, celebratory” GIFs that made me laugh, but what I really needed was one showing Macaulay Culkin’s face in “Home Alone” when he slaps aftershave on his skin. That look of open-mouthed horror mimicked the panicky thoughts that raced through my brain, hot on the heels of all the excitement: A two-book deal means I have to write another book!

After all, I set out to be a writer of books, plural. It’s a good thing, but the task sort of feels like standing at the bottom of a mountain (and not Red Mountain — more like Everest), and knowing I have to get to the top because I signed the dotted line saying I would get to the top. Nothing like a gentle nudge to let you know things are serious.

That’s where I am now — working on that second book. I took the holidays off from writing to focus on family, Christmas and regrouping. I don’t feel all that “grouped” now, but that’s life. It doesn’t slow down for anyone or anything, so all we can do is get a decent toehold and try to hang on.

So if you see me in the grocery store checkout line mumbling to myself or at the library face-down on a work table, just remind me I wanted this. I even asked for it! With a firm grasp on some good writing muses and a whole lot of prayer, hopefully at some point, my Macaulay Culkin face will be replaced with something a little less panicked, a little more hopeful, maybe even celebratory. 

I’d love to connect! Email me at LaurenKDenton@gmail.com or find me on Twitter @LaurenKDenton.