Whoa . . . .

I think every author, at least at the beginning, kind of, sort of thinks that this whole getting your book published thing has got to be a huge practical joke. Especially before you see anything tangible. We're just waiting for someone to go "PSYCH!!!!" and yank the proverbial rug out from underneath us.

I've had a lot of moments like that. In fact, when Jodi offered to represent me, I was at the gym grinning like an idiot, when all of the sudden it hit me. ANYONE could have made an email address and put "Jodi Reamer" as the sender!!! I seriously got SO paranoid that I cut my workout short and ran home to make sure that the email address I had received the email from was the same email address listed on Writers House's website. So yeah . . .um . . .I'm kinda paranoid.

However, everything about WINGS has been a dream come true. So all along my journey I have been looking for little signs that it is real. The ARCs were the first real, tangible sign. Real books! Surely someone wasn't sending these to me as a joke. Then things like pre-pub tour where OTHER people had my ARC. Well, they can't ALL be in on it, right??

Even seeing my book on the shelves was not quite good enough to convince me. After all, the only bookstores I had seen it at were local. That was still within the realm of possibility for practical joking. So going on tour and seeing it in other cities? Well, surely THAT meant it was real.

My credulity was strained last week when Tara and Jodi told me I had debuted on the NYT Bestsellers list. But they sent me the PDF of the list, and that Saturday it came out on the actual New York Times website. The New York Times certainly would not waste their good reputation helping out on the most eleborate practical joke ever. Surely . . .

Then the jokers went to0 far. Never believe something when it's too good to be true, I always say. So when Tara and Jodi called me this week to announce that WINGS was the number one New York Times Bestseller, I just KNEW it really was a joke. The whole darn thing. Because that was way, way, way to good to be true. They repeated three times that it really was true, and they sent me the PDF and I stared at it for about ten minutes.

But it was simply one step too far. It was too good to be true.

I actually did kind of go into shock (my father was a bit worried about me on the phone because I sounded so weird.) And after I finally came out of the numbness, I was--I kid you not--absolutely paralyzed by this overwhelming fear that, no, really, this whole publishing a book thing really WAS the biggest practical joke ever, and if I told anyone my new good news, everyone was just going to laugh harder at me.

My husband had no such qualms; he told everyone! But my stomach literally ached at the thought of telling anyone. ANYONE! I made Kenny tell his mother for me, and I managed to talk to my sister when she called, but I kind of just choked a couple of words out.

It took me two hours to finally emerge from that paralyzing fear and face the reality that, no, no one would actually play a hoax on me that was that big, that immense!

So it must be true!!

Wings must actually be the number ONE New York Times Bestselling Children's chapter book!!

OMG!!!!!!!!

About six hours after the initial call, it's finally starting to sink in! Never in even my wildest dreams, did I think my debut novel could reach number one. I honestly don't know how it happened. But somehow, it did!!!!

And all I can do--well, other than babble incoherently--is say thank you. Thank you to EVERYONE! To my agent for loving my writing even before it had matured, to my editor for taking a chance on a new author with a very strange idea about faeries, to my publicist who makes my events go so smoothly, my marketing team who have spread the word like nobody's business!! My blog readers who are the best word of mouth spreaders EVER! My readers. All of them. Even though most of them don't read this blog. Wow! Thank you all! You have made a dream I didn't even dare to dream, come true.

Thank you.

Ciao!