Huh. So that's a thing.

Y'know what's an odd feeling? It's when you're on your hands and knees, reorganizing a chapter from your novel with a pair of scissors and laying out the bits of pages on the floor to get a sense of narrative flow... and at the same time you're getting slightly tipsy on champagne. Because your husband, who is unbelievably sweet and maybe also over-optimistic, insisted on opening a bottle (admittedly, you had two bottles still chilling in the fridge, left over from your birthday party). Because an hour ago, while you were already on your hands and knees with the scissors, the phone rang and it was for you and you were really annoyed at being interrupted, and almost told whoever it was to call tomorrow, but it turned out to be the friend of your mom's who's also the VP of publicity for a humongous publisher. Yeah, the one who said she'd read some chapters of your novel -- the very chapters you're currently reworking with scissors -- three months ago, but you'd assumed that since you hadn't heard from her since then, you never would. But now she says that she thinks you can really write, though the chapters have some problems (and you're looking at the scissors, thinking "this is news?"), but at any rate your work is now in the hands of an associate editor, who would like to see some more.

And you know, and your mom's friend tells you, that this doesn't necessarily mean anything. The associate editor may never get around to calling you, and even if she does she may not love the rest of your book, and even if she loves it she may not be in a position to acquire manuscripts, and so on and so forth. Which you try to explain to your husband, even as he's twirling you around and opening the champagne and pouring you a glass. But then you drink it anyway, and you giggle a little, and you go back to your work with the champagne flute to keep sipping while you're snipping. You blame the champagne for making you come up with dopey rhymes, like sipping and snipping. You blog in the second person. You tell yourself very sternly that this is not anything to get elated about, it could all come to nothing, your expectations should stay nailed to the floor. But still, you feel kind of warm inside. Which isn't just because of the champagne.