It’s been… a week. To put it mildly.

I returned from a wildly successful and incredibly entertaining weekend at the Surrey International Writers Conference (writers, seriously, go to this conference. I cannot recommend it highly enough) to find that shenanigans were afoot.

What shenanigans, you ask? (Or maybe you didn’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway.)

Turns out that Lovely Agent had been working her beautiful magic, communicating with an editor at one of the Harlequin imprints who apparently is rather fond of my work (yay for editors being fond of work!). She’d sent my current available material and was waiting to hear back.

Well…

Haunted, the ghost/sci fi YA they couldn’t figure out how to make fit within their lines.

Breathe, the cancer spouse/love affair was perhaps a bit too darkly emotional for what they were looking for (but more on that later).

Dorian was just flat out too dark (yeah… that’s not a surprise and those who have read the partial will understand why I say that).

But Lovely Editor wanted to work with me so on Wednesday (The Diva’s 15th birthday as it happens), Lovely Agent called and said, “Hey, they have slots in a couple upcoming anthologies for which they want you to write a couple of novellas. You game?”

To which I replied, “Um… D’UH.”

Seriously—I’m a writer. Give me something I can work with and I’m a very happy camper and this… this is something with which I can work. The anthologies will be released through Harl’s Kimani TRU line, which is the multicultural YA imprint, for holiday 2013 and spring 2014. Totally in my wheelhouse and moreover, sounds like FUN, which is something that has been in short supply lately.

And in the meantime, new Lovely Editor has yet another proposal of mine in hand, which was one I came up with back in the day as an option book that never seemed to jibe with TPTB, but that I hope will work this time around. It’s a fun story, set in a fashion design school and deals with body image and perspective and presciently enough, kind of ties into the whole “New Adult” wave that’s going around.

And also in the meantime, remember that splendid time I said I had at Surrey? Well, I met another Lovely Editor, also from Harlequin, yet another arm of the company, to whom I pitched BREATHE. (For those of you new to these parts, this is That Book. The one I can’t let go of, because I believe in it So Damned Hard.) This particular imprint is one that I actually feel is rather well suited to a story like BREATHE, that’s a little outside the box and defies some traditional story tropes, yet is still deeply emotional and real and moreover, I really, really liked this editor a great deal and feel as if she’s also someone I could work well with.

So… I sit back and wait. (Story of my life.) But at least now I have something with which to keep myself busy. Already the ideas are percolating and I can’t wait for characters to reveal themselves although they better do it quick—proposal deadline is November 14th. My sister’s birthday, another lucky day.

And because I’m me, I celebrated by buying these. Go on… look surprised. I dare you.