Sofa King Amazing

So I have this book I wrote called BELL JAR SUMMER and I just sold it and am beside myself with incredulous glee! This is what Publisher's Marketplace announcement announced...in "New Deals":

"Arlaina Tibensky's BELL JAR SUMMER, the story of a fifteen year-old, whose parents are splitting up, whose boyfriend is trying to wrestle her out of her pants at every opportunity, and who's suffering through late onset chicken pox while languishing in the Chicago suburbs with only an ancient IBM typewriter, her chain-smoking grandmother, and her beloved well-worn copy of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar to console her to Anica Rissi at Simon Pulse, in a pre-empt, by Brendan Deneen at FinePrint Literary Management."

In PRE-FUCKING-EMPT! Am I paying back my Columbia graduate school loans with the advance, ehm, no. But! A book that I wrote has found a home and people besides my friends who are obligated to prop up my fragile ego might actually read it.

What is so funny about all this book deal business is this:

1. The agent that brokered the deal (yes that Brendan Deneen) emailed his wanting to represent me on my birthday (12/16)
2. Simon Pulse made me an offer on my mom's birthday (1/14)
3. Libba Bray, the secret love of my life and the writer whose interview with Barnes & Nobel's "Meet the Writers" inspired me to try my hand at a YA book, released her masterpiece, Going Bovine, on my kid's birthday (9/22)
4. !!!

What I'm getting at is the universe has been trying to get me to follow this YA path down the rabbit hole and now that I have, I'm glad I listened. Did you know that I am the world's oldest sixteen year old? That this book flew from my brain onto the page? That I love this book more than I thought possible? That I myself had late onset chicken pox as a 15 year old one hot summer long ago?

Seriously, I was channelling it, like the midget in Poltergeist and then it was here in the world, this gorgeous monster and here I am, putting a leash on it and walking it around the streets of New York. Sofa king amazing.