As she walked away, I noticed Dave coming toward me. His expression was good natured, nothing like the look on Vanessa’s face.
“Hey Aubrey, I’ve got a pretty big problem,” he began, though the pleasant expression didn’t leave his face. “I know I said I was going to submit some stories for our new daily schedule.”
“With your gaming group, right,” I said, remembering the meeting from Wednesday. “You mentioned they might write some of the backstories for their characters, and you’d edit it down?”
“That’s the problem,” he said. “I got a pile of stuff from them.”
“Isn’t that good news?” I asked.
“For the most part. But it’s all pretty rough. It’s going to take a lot of work to edit. But with this push to have more content, I want to make sure I’m getting my writing out there. I’m not sure I’m going to have the time to edit all of their stuff and still write my own, too.”
“Can I help at all?” I asked. It could be a way to keep my mind off everything that was going on, maybe a way to burn off the stress with some good old fashioned editing work.
“Thank you so much for offering,” he said, sound relieved. “I was hoping you would. I’m going to tell my group I’ll put their stuff together for a summer anthology, and that’ll get me off the hook so I can focus on my own stuff. And I was thinking about maybe writing romance.”
My eyes widened, surprised and excited. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he said enthusiastically. “The idea of doing all of this editing work kind of bums me out, especially if it’s not my own work. But I read your stuff religiously and I’m really into it.”
“You’re… into it?” I tried not to cringe at the potential double meaning.
“I mean, you know, I’m not using it to…” He flailed with his hands frantically, as if to wave off the words, his eyes bugging out comically as his face turned purple with embarrassment. “I’m not using it for anything like that, I didn’t mean it to come off that way.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” I said, soothing him.
“I just thought maybe I could try my hand at it,” he said, the purple tint to his cheeks fading. “Your stories make me happy, in a weird way. I’m not sure I know how to describe it. Maybe you could give me some pointers on how to craft one of my own?”
I was touched, and a bit flabbergasted. My stories made people happy. I couldn’t help but smile.
“Of course!” I said. “Absolutely, I would love to give you a hand.”
“I won’t take up a whole lot more of your time,” he said. “I want to get started and draft something out. But if you could tell me, what’s the number one thing you focus on when you write?”
I thought about it, remembering back to every single time I picked up the laptop and really got into the zone with writing words.
“It’s honestly really simple,” I said. “You won’t even have to write it down.”
“I’m all ears,” he said eagerly.
“Focus on the emotions, wherever you can,” I said. “It’s not what they do, it’s how they feel. For your main protagonists, anyway.”
“I get you. That resonates a lot.” He nodded. “I’m gonna get started. Mind if I send you some pages at some point to take a look?”
“Please do,” I said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Awesome, thank you so much.” He shrugged his bag over his shoulder and headed toward one of the couches.
From my other side, I heard a voice.
“I am so unbelievably proud right now,” Luka said.
I gave him the quickest and most subtle once-over that I possibly could. His hair was flipped in that perfect way, and his clothing was stylish from head to toe. I wondered what his wardrobe looked like, and how many outfits he had for every season.
“Proud of what?” I asked.
“Of you,” he said. “I’m impressed by your drive, your insistence on pushing forward through every obstacle, and achieving your goals. But more than that, I’m proud that you would willingly help out another romance writer, someone that people might view as competition.”
“I just want people to be happy,” I said. “The less stress, the better. If I can help him succeed, I can help the VIP Lit Club succeed, right?”
