Jillian Chantal

My friend, Lynn Rush, is counting down her top 5 moments of the year 2010 on her blog http://lynnrush.wordpress.com/ and it made me think a bit over the past year and I have to say that my top moment of the year occurred on August 31, 2010.  The day started out kind of meh. I had depositions in the day job with another attorney that I have no affection for on the other side. It was with dread that I drove to the court reporter’s office to deal with this guy. The first good thing that happened was he sent an associate lawyer instead of coming himself. A cute, young man with dimples who is utterly charming and a pleasure to be around.  This was 9:00 am. So, the day was looking up.

The deposition ended at around 10:15 am.  I walked out of the court reporter’s office to find four, count them, four, plain clothes deputies. Now, if you know me well, you know that a man in plain clothes with a holster and gun on his hip will make me swoon. So, from cute, dimpled lawyer to four hot cops, that was really the cake for the day. I was happy and fairly hummed and skipped my way back to my car. Nothing else was expected to occur for the day. Just office work.

When I got to the office, I bebopped to my desk and sat down. Pushed send/receive on my email and gasped in shock- said, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” My two secretaries skidded around the corner and asked me what was wrong. Nothing was wrong!! It was an email from SirenBookStrand entitled “SOLO HONEYMOON for publication”-  I HAD SOLD MY FIRST BOOK!!! And the funniest part was I’d forgotten I’d submitted it on July 23.

I had to read that sucker four times to be sure it really said they wanted to publish my lil ole story.  I had had short stories published before but this was the first full length book.  I was so thrilled, I didn’t know what to do first. I finally decided to call my awesome beta reader. What a great day. 

AND this day started a snow ball effect as, three weeks later, I sold my second full length novel and then last month, I sold a third.  So, I’m pretty happy with 2010.