TO:Colin Yarmouth ([email protected])
FROM:Grace Landing ([email protected])
RE:yearbook
Dear Colin,
I am so sorry. Yes, your assumption that I was under the influence is an accurate one. I should not have emailed you. I am mortified. Please go back to your undoubtedly perfect life and forget all about this unfortunate incident.
Regards,
Grace
P.S. You look very athletic, and your hair is well-coiffed. Please disregard any comments to the contrary.
I hitsendand go back to work. And by work, I mean making myself a sandwich.
Thirty minutes later, I glue my butt to the chair. No more excuses. I flip back a few pages and reread what I wrote on Friday, before the events of my shameful weekend occurred.
Shit.It’s literal garbage.
I hate every word.
The story I’m working on is a thinly veiled, fluffy romance where a gorgeous Realtor named Presley suddenly finds herself broke and needs to sell one of her properties quickly. She posts ads everywhere and gets a response from her high school sweetheart, a drop-dead gorgeous beefcake named Connor.
I know, I know. Like I said, thinly veiled.
Anyway, Connor makes an appointment to see the place and Presleytries to seduce him. It’s bad. She bakes chocolate chip cookies (referred to in the story as “golden orbs of chocolatey bliss,” which is horrible writing but absolute truth, and the recipe I’ve perfected makes me horny just thinking about them) so the apartment smells sweet, and then she shows him the view and takes him into the bedroom, where they reminisce over their prom night together.
It’s funny to read, because man, do I have some imagination. Colin Yarmouth would never havedreamedof choosing me as a prom date. Instead, myrealprom night was spent with my cousin Jerald, who insisted I attendthemilestone event of my teen years and drove his slick-looking red VW Jetta all the way down from Connecticut to take me. He’s older than me by six years and extremely good looking. I’m pretty sure there were whispers of me having possibly hired an escort.
Anyway, Presley and Connor are in the bedroom, and she creates this moment where there’s a pause before Presley pulls him into her. When he kisses her, she compares it to the “sweetness of a Moscato mixed with the raw sensuality of a juicy, fresh-cut porterhouse steak.”
I reread that line. Sounds disgusting and delicious, all at the same time. Where did I come up with that? Ah, whatever. That’s the beauty of first drafts. They don’t have to be polished. I force myself not to fall into a daydream where I have enough money to afford both wineandsteak in the same meal. Instead, I keep reading.
Presley and Connor go at it with their clothes on, engaging in full-on dry-humping foreplay, which is as descriptive as humanly possible to stir up the loins of all those lascivious readers, per the advice of Shirley Temple (swear to God, that’s her real name), the woman who edited my last trilogy over at Grand Imperial Books. We’re talking tongues circling, hair-pulling, a detailed paragraph about Connor’s ass cheeks, and a case study on his erection. It’s smut. Connor is the Colin Yarmouth of my teenage fantasies, like a page ripped right out of an old diary. He’sbeautiful, sexy, and smoldering, but of course (because every story needs a conflict), he’s married to somebody else. The section ends with Connor’s wife, Melinda, walking in on them, and alas—trope of all tropes—we have ourselves a love triangle.
It’s textbook. Been done before. The only thing that’s different is that in this case, the protagonist (Presley) is supposed to be likeable, despite her motives of seducing Connor so he’ll buy her apartment and save her from financial ruin, a move which I think most female readers will agree does not exactly create warm and fuzzy feelings. Also, where exactly is the storygoing?
This is the issue I’ve been struggling with ever since I submitted the last manuscript.
Once Scott ended things—or, I should say—once the fetus he planted into someone else’s womb ended things, I had what Lindsay called a “rough spot” there for a bit. I can usually churn out pages like it’s nobody’s business. But in order to write romance novels, you need to a) be willing to get down and dirty with anatomical descriptions, and b) be a true believer in the concept of happily-ever-after.
I’ve got the anatomy stuff down cold, but I don’t know how to get my optimism back after what Scott did to me.
Lindsay, who seems to let nothing faze her, suggested I “buck up and try something new.” I don’t donewvery well though. So, I guess that’s why instead I went backwards—back to high school—back to a world that was less than accepting of my nerdy, awkward self—and figured I’d try to rewrite the ending.
But a girl trying to nail a married guy so that he’ll buy an apartment from her? That’s not exactly protagonist material. (Let’s be real. It’s gotman-hating pessimistwritten all over it.)
I bang my head down on the keyboard. The sound is so loud that I don’t hear thepingof my inbox.
Colin
I have a good job. It pays the bills. Hell, it pays the mortgage forthe house on Long Islandandmy apartment.
But the job itself? It really sucks sometimes.
My grandfather started the firm in the 1960s, and he passed it down to my dad, who worked there from 1991 until last year, when he technically retired. I saytechnicallybecause he never cleaned out his office. It sits there like a shrine to him, basically a reminder that he can come back whenever the mood strikes.
