What REALLY went on during the last five months!

So... what do you do when you've gotten THE BIGGEST NEWS OF YOUR CAREER and you CAN'T TELL EVERYONE?????

You... take a lot of pictures to commemorate every tiny milestone so you can share them all when you're FINALLY allowed to spill.

So here's what REALLY went on during the last five months:

It all started with an EPIC series of phone calls:

Lots of exciting, surreal, life-changing conversations that finally led to an email from Liesa Abrams that started with this:

Laura just passed along your email address and I'm SO excited to write to you officially as your editor now. Woohoo!!!!!

Yeah... I totally cried. Good tears of course. But yeah...

Then came the inevitable question (from the *few* people I was allowed to tell):

What are you going to do to celebrate??????

To which I--of COURSE--went all Superbowl Champion and was like: 

I'm going to Disneyland!!!!!!

Where I suddenly realized: OMG my publisher is ALADDIN and THERE IS ALADDIN STUFF EVERYWHERE (different Aladdin--but still!). So of COURE I took a ton of nerdy pictures:

And even bought some nerdy souvenirs for my desk:

(Yes, I now buy pretty much anything Aladdin/genie lamp related)

(my husband has decided to find it cute)

There were also presents from my amazingly supportive CPs:

Sara 1

And Sarah 2

(this shirt won't make a whole lot of sense to any of you yet, but someday it will...) 

And then... the WAITING started.

And I waited.

And waited.

And WAITED.

Sometimes I entertained myself with vague tweets between me and my friend Natalie Whipple with a secret hashtag only we knew (Natalie was ALSO sitting on secret book news):

Pretty sure everyone thought we were super weird. But we thought it was pretty entertaining.

And then, I didn't have time to play around anymore because THESE arrived:

EDITS!

Yeah... I got a bit emotional getting a package from Simon & Schuster with MY book inside.

(and um... pay no attention to the title on there--that's the old rejected title, not the new shiny)

It was SO HARD not to tell you guys what I had going on--especially since I had deadlines and stuff that sometimes prevented me from blogging. But I powered through.

And while I was in the middle of the revision, I went to ALA, where I of COURSE spent way too much time at the S&S Booth. 

This is me with the lovely Venessa, who was nice enough to get me invited to the S&S Party one of the evenings:

(me with Jo Whittemore, Elana Johnson, and Editor Anica Rissi)

It was VERY surreal to be introduced to S&S people as: "one of our new authors."

Alas, my editor wasn't there. But I wasn't TOO brokenhearted about it because I'd found out she was going to be at SCBWI LA, so I knew I would get to meet her there.

Before I did that though, I finished up my revision, sent it off, and then went to Comic Con, where once again I spent WAY too much time at the S&S booth:

(This is me with the awesome Anna and Carolyn)

And spent quite a lot of time looking for the perfect Batman thank-you gift, because Liesa has a *slight* Batman obsession. 

I also met Brandon Mull, part of the amazing Liesa Abrams family, and he was awesome enough to sign THIS in my copy of BEYONDERS: A WORLD WITHOUT HEROES: 

Yeah... that was pretty much the coolest thing ever. And should give you some idea of how amazing Liesa is to work with.

Then finally, FINALLY it was time for SCBWI LA, where I got to meet Liesa myself (I *may* have attacked her pretty much the second she stepped through the hotel doors--poor thing). 

And she was sweet and generous enough to take me out to dinner with a few other S&S authors:

(that's me with Alan Silberburg, Hillary Homzie, Jo Whittemore, and James Riley)

(Liesa is NOT pictured because she hates having her picture taken even more than I do--something I didn't know was possible. So instead she was the one taking the picture of all of us.)

I'll tell you more about meeting Liesa another time, because this post is already reaching epic lengths. And we'll fast forward through another two months of waiting, and title changes, and more waiting, until we finally get to THIS:

The day I finally signed my contract with S&S!!!!!

They are now OFFICIALLY AND LEGALLY STUCK WITH ME (I *may* have used that  phrase when I emailed Liesa and Laura to let them know the signed contracts were on their way. Good thing they're used to me.)

That's when I finally got the "we're ready to announce" email from Laura and a few days after that the news hit PW. And you guys know the rest BECAUSE I HAVE NOT STOPPED TALKING ABOUT IT SINCE!!!

Don't worry, I *promise* I will stop talking your ears off about all of this soon. Just... give me a few more days. I have FIVE MONTHS of pent-up enthusiasm to release. 

Plus, I still have a few things to do--like an epic contest to launch (yay!) and a deal I made with you guys a loooooooong time ago to fulfill (ugh!). So keep an eye out for all of that. Trust me, you won't want to miss it. Major Epicness in Store!