Last Friday, the call finally came. It was the call I’d been anticipating for months. It was the call I’d been working toward for years. It was the call I sometimes thought would never come.

It was a call from my literary agent. He’d finished reading the latest revision of my novel, and he is ready to start sharing it with some handpicked editors the week after Labor Day.

Thus, I begin a new phase in my fiction-writing career — actually having my book submitted to publishers. On the surface, that might sound like it should have been a simple goal, something easy to attain. But to actually get to this point was anything but easy. I have spent many years writing and revising this book — countless late nights, countless pre-dawn mornings, so many stolen moments.

And believe me, I know. I know how low the odds are. In today’s book market, I know how rare it is for any book editor to actually like a book so thoroughly that she would be willing to part with hard-earned cash to have it. But right now, on this week, that’s okay. I’ll bemoan those sober realities some other day.

In other words, wooooooooooooooooooooo-hoooooo.