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After several weeks of negotiations (most of which I was glad not to be involved in at all) I went to the post office today with four signed copies of the 13-page contract for Linked, plus a tax form (how glad am I that I made the trip to London and got my ITIN earlier this year?), and posted them all off to the Simon & Schuster offices in New York.

Moment of awe and silence please.  The Simon & Schuster offices in New York.

I swear to God, I still go dizzy sometimes when I remember I have an agent.  An agent.  For me.  And now, to be signing a NY publisher's contract and posting it to their NY offices�

Well, it felt great, that's all.  Posting a signed contract to the States, after all those times of all my US letters being hopeful queries and manuscripts being sent to agents and publishers, and getting various forms of rejections in return.  And I've carefully kept my receipt and made a note of the cost, because from this tax year on I'm going to be claiming my business expenses back.  Which is also pretty exciting!

I'm very keen to get on with editing Linked, which obviously can't happen until everyone has signed the contract.  Partly because I want to get on with writing the sequel, and I don't want to start until after the Linked edits, in case something gets changed that affects the world-building.  I'm also quite keen to spend some of my advance on a better computer chair, because my existing one is horrible for my back � and Lucy the cat has shredded the top of the back-rest because whenever I make her move off a kitchen worktop she attacks my chair in rage and revenge.

In family news, Abstract is still on holiday this week, so he's been doing gardening-type stuff.  And cooking dinners, because I am not on holiday.  And cleaning out the pond, which led to lots of displaced mini froglets deciding our sitting room was the place to be. Fortunately we love our mini froglets and didn't mind scooping them up and putting them out again.

Sparkler is currently spending a few days with my friend who owns a cake-baking business, doing what sounds like super fun, albeit extremely busy, work experience.  Gloworm has had her ears pierced, and had what sounded like a really nice day today meeting up for shopping with a friend.  She's come back with some fabulous pink and black trousers!

Next weekend the girls are staying with The Model Auntie and Dr T-shirt for a couple of nights, and Abstract and I are visiting our old stomping grounds in London, where we met/dated/married/lived until Sparkler was a year old.

And that's all for now!

We just got back from a week in a holiday cottage on the edge of the Lake District.  I found it online (Abstract always likes how happy I am to poke around the internet and find nice places to go!), and it was blissful.

We were in a little two-bedroom holiday cottage, with the luxury of a dishwasher, washing machine and dryer, two shower rooms (so necessary when you have teenage daughters!), and a local hedgehog who came schoofling around on the grass next to our cottage on Sunday night.

Although we were staying in our own little cottage, it was in the grounds of a hotel, so we had the added luxury of a bar and restaurant right next door, plus unlimited access to the hotel gym, swimming pool, Jacuzzi, steam room and sauna.  And a beauty salon that the girls and I had our nails done at on Thursday.

Our holiday diary looked like this:

Friday: Settled into lovely and extremely well-appointed cottage.  Enjoyed novelty of the master bedroom being on a sort of balcony above the main living area, so we could shout up and down to each other. Abstract and Gloworm went swimming, Sparkler and I did a half-hour of yoga before dinner in the cottage.
Saturday: Abstract and I walked into the local village, Kirkby Lonsdale, had a coffee and admired the prettiness of the river and the village—and the huge gang of bikers who'd congregated all around Devil's Bridge.
Sunday: I went swimming with the girls (and amused them endlessly with my Face of Great Pain when I had to get into the pool after going in the heated jacuzzi), and tried out the steam room and sauna.  
Monday: We went on an hour-and-a-half horse ride through some lovely countryside.  In the evening Abstract and I had a date with wine and brandy in the hotel bar while the girls read and played on their iPods back in the cottage.
Tuesday: A lazy day of swimming for some and coffee in the sunshine for others.  Then we watched The Bounty Hunter and ate curry in the evening.
Wednesday: We went to Holmescales Activity Centre, where we did archery (I won!), Abstract and I drove a 4×4 all over mountainous tracks and in and out of ponds, and we all drove a tank around a terrifyingly steep course.  In the evening we had a lovely dinner out at a restaurant in Kirkby Lonsdale called The Italian Garden (calamari, spaghetti alla carbonara, tiramisu�) with a fabulous and very enthusiastic waiter called Hector.  We loved Hector!
Thursday: The girls and I all had luxury hour-long manicures at the hotel beauty salon, followed by pizza in the evening.
Friday: We went to a wildlife park on the way home, and met mongooses and foosa and marmosets (including a family with twin marmoset babies!) and a beautiful snow leopard.

It was the perfect mix of lazy and busy.  We took a tonne of books (on Kindle, which means available on everyone's iPods and iPhones as well, and in print � we're still working our way through The Twelve, as Sparkler and I have named the box of books I got from Simon & Schuster), and everyone could be active or lazy depending on what they felt like.  We're planning on booking the exact same cottage next year!

For every one of the last five nights I've had bad dreams.  I know, pity me!  Once (just once, thankfully!) I woke myself up by screaming.  Fortunately, Abstract happened to be already awake but I still gave him a bit of a shock.

I've dreamed about zombies (partly my own fault for reading the excellent before going to sleep), I've dreamed about people being nasty to me, I've dreamed about cleaning kitchen worktops (???), and one night I managed to dream all of the following:

Getting an email from Samhain listing the tasks that are not being completed in a timely fashion, and nearly all of them were things that are my responsibility.
Getting an email from my agent with cut & pasted comments from all the publishers who didn't contract Linked, tearing to pieces everything from plot to pace to the number of sentences I began with "If".
Being stuck on some kind of holiday with a whole bunch of bikini-ed women my own age, all of whom had absolutely perfect, totally flawless bodies.
Abstract insisting on telling me about all the people he wished he'd had sex with before we got married, and being surprised and irritated when I objected.

It's quite something to have most of your insecurities revealed in one night!

Last week Gloworm went on a week's school trip to Barcelona (and yes, we both survived!), and Sparkler was in two performances of West Side Story. Abstract was away for a night, we went to friends for lunch and Sparkler had a vaccination.

This week both girls are in Beauty and the Beast, they had dentist appointments yesterday, and I'm preparing for this weekend when our church is doing a Big Weekend of activities for the local community. On Friday I'm picking up a teddy bear costume, running a Creative Writing stall at the local school summer fayre, and co-running the youth group with Abstract. On Saturday we've got an all-morning breakfast buffet where Abstract is cooking, the girls are doing face-painting, and I'm just generally helping out and meeting the trainee vicar who's staying at our house that night. Then I'm picking up another teddy bear costume, and in the evening we have a barn dance and a pie and pea supper.

On Sunday I'm co-running a teddy bears' picnic. We have races and stickers and medals and face-painting and all sorts of stuff going on. NEXT week the three cats have to have vaccinations, several people have medical appointments, I'm taking the teddy bear costumes back to two different shops in two different towns (yeah, I know), I'm giving blood for the first time, the girls break up from school, Abstract is off work and we go away on holiday.

I'm also working, and writing my next YA book that's not the sequel to Linked. So far I love it greatly, but I'm only 7,000 words in so that's so very much subject to change!

No one has yet invited me to join Google Plus, but I do keep gathering Twitter followers.  Oh, and I have a huge box of books from my lovely editor at Simon & Schuster that I have to do a whole post (with pictures) about.

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On Tuesday 7th June, determined to get the final of my young adult space opera Linked to my agent, Mandy Hubbard, the next day, I took Sparkler to youth theatre and,  as I've done every Tuesday evening for the last three months, sat with laptop, latte (and onion rings this time) in McDonald's, typing my little fingers off on the last few scenes. I then went home, ate some toast, and sat up till 1am tweaking the final scene.

Wednesday 8th June, midday: I finished a few more tweaks and sent it to Mandy.

Thursday 9th June, morning: I woke up to an email from Mandy saying that she loved it. I was overwhelmed with relief. Weirdly (given what came next!) this was possibly my happiest point in the whole week. If she'd asked for revisions of course I could have done them (I'd already done extensive revisions on the first half of the book, and I'd written the rest on a synopsis she'd approved), but I was so glad I'd got what she wanted first time. Well, this first time if you see what I mean.

Mandy let me know I should work on a synopsis for the sequel so she could show that to publishers too.

Thursday afternoon: Mandy emailed me the list of publishers she'd sent the manuscript to, and let me know that one editor in particular was going to start reading today.

Friday 10th June, afternoon: Mandy emailed to let me know that two editors had given her some very positive feedback on the manuscript, which meant she would be letting other editors know there'd been interest.

She told me to get cracking on the synopsis and asked if she could help with anything. I said I'd carry on working on it and send her a first draft Saturday. She also explained pre-empts and auctions to me.

Saturday 11th June, all freaking day: I worked on the synopsis. And I worked on the synopsis. And aside from feeding people, which I did manage to do, I was a bad mother, wife and daughter-in-law to my mother-in-law who was visiting, because I was working, guess what, on the synopsis.

Saturday evening: I emailed Mandy with half a synopsis and confessed that I'd have to send her the full synopsis the next day.

Sunday 12th June, evening: I emailed Mandy the synopsis. She got back to me to say she loved it and I collapsed in relief. Well, actually first I made my husband and daughters dance with me, then I collapsed in relief and had three glasses of wine. I'd been working for such a long time by then that I was wound so tight I couldn't relax!

Monday 13th June, evening: Mandy told me that three editors had read/were reading the manuscript and loved it.

Tuesday 14th June, afternoon (3.50pm actually, so my daughters saw my excited face through the window as they arrived home from school): Mandy phoned to say a publisher had made a pre-emptive (and amazing!) offer for a two-book deal. She would be contacting the other publishers who had the manuscript to give them the chance to offer. She let me know that by 8pm my time we'd have either accepted the pre-empt or the book would have gone to auction.

I called my husband, who used language entirely unsuitable for this blog, then I took Sparkler out to youth theatre (with instructions to answer my phone if Mandy called when I was driving), then I went to McDonald's for my usual Tuesday time of latte-and-writing. This time my mobile phone was turned up to max volume and I kept it out on the table beside me.

Tuesday, 6.29pm: Mandy called for a quick consultation, and, less than a week after I finished writing the book, we agreed to go with the publisher's offered deal.

After thirty-eight years of practicing writing and about eight of seeking publication, several near-misses, more rejections than I can count, four epublished short stories, two epublished novellas and one digital-first full-length novel, good reviews, not-so-good reviews, disappointments and triumphs, I had my first contract with a New York publishing house.

I know, I still need to post about my Very Exciting Week.  The trouble is, that week kind of turned into two very exciting weeks, and I'm still low on sleep!  And high on work, including planning my next-but-one YA book.  The  next will be Linked's sequel, of course, but I'm holding off on starting that properly until I've talked over editorial revisions for Linked in case they change anything.

Abstract and I went out for a celebratory breakfast on Saturday while the girls were at dance and drama.  No champagne, but we did have lots of delicious coffee and I had Eggs Benedict, which I've never had before.  Then we did a little shopping, went into Waterstones to see where my book would be shelved (assuming the UK rights sell � Sparkler will be SO disappointed if they don't!), admired the covers of the Simon & Schuster books (specifically ) and bought the girls some books as part of the celebrations.

Oh, and I made a decision!  I'm going to go to the RWA Conference in 2012.  I am SO excited.  I've been wanting to go for ages, and always promised myself I'd go when I had something appropriate to pitch to agents.  Well, now I don't, because I have an agent (haha � still celebrating that one!).   But I'd still like to go do the networking thing, hear about the industry firsthand, and meet up with a whole bunch of people I've known for years but rarely if ever met in person.

In the category of small happy things, the girls and I have been having an excellent time trying out snack boxes from .  They're designed to make sure you snack on things that are (mostly) good for you rather than grabbing empty calories in the form of cakes and crisps, so I thought they might be a bit dull and worthy.  But they're oh so not.  They're full of these dear little punnets of snack mixes (olives, tiny loaves of bread, seeds, nuts, dried fruit � including one mix called Sticky Chocolate Pudding that's made of milk chocolate drops, green raisins and jumbo raisins and counts as one of your five a day) and are totally delicious.  Every time one arrives through the letterbox it's like getting a box of chocolates you don't have to feel guilty about finishing in a day!

If you're in the UK, go to the site and enter this code � M19P6C9A � you get a free box.

I need to write a longer post about the Very Exciting Week I've just had, but right now I just have to share.

This is from Publishers Marketplace, June 16th:

Imogen Howson's LINKED, in which a girl discovers her nightmarish visions and inexplicable bruises are caused by a telepathic link to a twin she didn't know existed, and when she helps the girl evade government capture, a BOURNE IDENTITY style chase ensues, to Navah Wolfe at Simon & Schuster Children's, in a good deal, by Mandy Hubbard at D4EO Literary Agency.

This book, under the title Telepathic Twins in Space (which I still kind of love), was my National Novel Writing Month project for 2009.  I finished and revised it during 2010, revised it again during the first three months of 2011 after specific suggestions from my now-agent, and it'll be out in 2013.  After more revisions from my editor.  Which, weirdly, I'm kind of looking forward to!

I was up till way past midnight waiting for the Publishers Marketplace announcement to go live (it finally went up at about 4am, by which time I'd given up and gone to sleep), this morning I got up to a tonne of messages and congratulations (thank you, everyone!), and now I have to try to work.  Ha.

Once again I stick my head out of the writing cave, this time because if I don't commemorate these moments on the blog I'll kick myself in the future.

I've spent the last two months finishing Linked.  Yes, people, The Book That Will Not End has become The Book That Finally Ended, at just 7,000 words longer than the first version (and with nearly that number of changes!).

I stayed up till 1am Tuesday night writing the last scene, then spent most of the  next morning tweaking, editing, polishing etc, then sent the whole thing off to Mandy the Agent.  Who got back to me late last night (my time, not hers) to say she loved it.  So that was a nice email to wake up to today!

And at this very moment the full manuscript is on editors' desks.  Editors who simply would never see it at all if it didn't come via an agent.

Yeah.  That's the milestone.  My manuscript, on editors' desks.

They might all hate it.  It might not sell.  But this, this moment, is a milestone I've been working towards for a very long time.  I tell you, I'm buying champagne tomorrow.

Following , I am happy to join in mocking the who went to the recent Romantic Novelists' Association summer party and, despite the usual glamorous cross-section of twenty-somethings-to-eighty-somethings, hallucinated a horde of nothing but pension-collecting ladies with blue-rinsed hair, twinsets and pearls.

There certainly were RNA members who are of pensionable age at the party, but there were a lot of other people too � and, from having been to other RNA events, the common theme would have been delicious shoes, not blue rinses.

This, Ms Lazy Daily Mail Journalist, is what a Romantic Novelist looks like:

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