Some would say I’m in deadline hell.

Just this week I sent off a proposal for a brand new book. I met an agent at Bouchercon who, through very coincidental circumstances, learned about me. (He happened to be sitting by a friend of mine when he got a chuckle out of my bad-ass photo in the B’con brochure, and she whipped out my newest book, The Day Will Come, which she just so happened to have in her bag. He read the first few pages, liked my dialogue, and said, “I want to meet her.” She introduced us, we arranged a meeting time, and he asked for a proposal. Thanks, Ingrid!) The proposal I wrote was for a book I’d just gotten an idea for a couple weeks earlier (when I was taking one of those walks I mentioned on Tuesday that you all made fun of. So there!). This has been a new experience for me — I’m used to having a couple of months to write up an outline before putting down a word of prose, and here I was needing to have a synopsis, character descriptions, and the first two chapters done in two weeks! A challenge, but a fun one.

Now I’m furiously working on finishing up Stella #5 (which still needs a title! Augh!), so I can hand it in during November. Which means I need to get it finished, have my “trusted readers” go through it, make whatever changes need to be made, and send it off within the next few weeks.

After that I need to write the first one hundred pages of another book for Poisoned Pen, which needs to be handed in, in its entirety, in July. I haven’t gotten farther than page one of that outline yet.

Then I have a second book to write in my Mennonite historical figure series for Herald Press, the first of which will be coming out this spring.

So I’m busy.

But, you know, I will never, ever say I’m in deadline hell.

Because this is what I always wanted. It’s what so many people dream of. Publishers waiting for the books they’ve contracted. Agents asking for proposals. Fans writing letters, like the one I got from Twinsburg Bob today (Hi, Bob!) saying his Joseph-Beth book group is reading Till the Cows Come Home for the month of November.

I’m writing. I’m happy. I’m amazed.

I’m in deadline heaven.