It was mid-July before I heard back from Natalie.
"Well that didn't take very long," she said from her air conditioned office in Florida.
"What didn't take very long?" I asked.
"Selling the book."
I was speechless. She'd found a publisher? In, what, not even a month?
"You still there?" she said, laughing.
"Who bought it?"
"The publishing rights or the movie rights?"
"Movie rights?" I said. Someone was going to make a movie out of my book?
She laughed, then choked on the cigarette she must've been inhaling during her laugh.
"Settle down, kid," she said. "No one's bought it yet."
I felt like a deflated balloon. Pop. That fast.
"We're in the middle of a bidding war," she continued.
"Which is?"
"When something's real good, when they think it's really gonna take off, the publisher
