Dr. Potts’s eyebrows furrow. “You don’t say?”
“It hasn’t been the best year for me. My editor isn’t breathing down my neck, and I haven’t heard from my agent in a while, so I’m fortunate in that way. But I know there’s another book on my contract so I won’t be able to put the publisher off forever.”
I didn’t tell Piper I was late to book club because I’d been trying to write the story of my dad—and it hadn’t really worked. There was no unlocking of the writer’s block. No massive weight lifted. No magic spell demolished.
He rubs his chin. “You’ve tried all the regular things? Taking a break, writing for you, reading outside of your genre?”
“Yes.”
“Readinginsideyour genre?”
I think about the Clancy Calloway thriller I just finished. “Yes.”
“You probably just need time.”
“The one thing I might not have for much longer.” My editor and agent are being patient with me now, but that can’t last forever. I still have a contract and one last book remaining on it.
The timer blares on Dr. Potts’s phone, and he jumps to his feet. “Time! Now, who’s brave enough to share with the class?”
A woman in the center row raises her hand.
“Yes!” Dr. Potts claps once. “Wonderful.”
Her dialogue is about two people who are both assigned the same seat on a flight, and one of them is bumped to standby but has to be carried from the plane. It’s pretty good. The only point Dr. Potts makes is that she uses “said” in every single tag, which bogs it down a little.
A handful more share. One is a train ride through Germany, but they end up sharing the compartment and hook up—that was Lori. Another is about two people who are both assigned to the same seat in an award show and argue until the man gives it up, only for him to turn out to be the guest of honor. There is an array of locations and situations. Quite a few are romantic. One is a set of brothers.
By the time Dr. Potts hands the baton over to me, we have twenty minutes left in class. I touch on the importance of matching the narrator’s voice to the genre and vibe. We go over genre expectations. None of it dives very deep.
With one minute left on the clock, Piper raises her hand.
“Yes, Ms. Monroe?”
She comes to the front of the class. “I doubt I’m alone in feeling like I was just stuffed full of great information, tricks, and tools. But while our teachers have given their time to be here, they can’t stick around all night. So we’re going to open the floor for a few minutes to have a bit of a Q&A and then we’ll let them slip out.”
Disappointment slides through me. I’d rather stay here and hang out with her, but I recognize the favor she’s doing for me. The crowd that gathered last week was most of the class. If I’d spoken to each of them, we would have been there another hour, easily.
“So, any questions for either of our teachers tonight?”
A smattering of hands goes up.
“Yes?” Piper asks, pointing to Todd, the man from the first night who had been disappointed to hear I was replacing the other teacher.
Todd clears his throat. “How long does it take to make any money at this job?”
Dr. Potts coughs.
Piper doesn’t give either of us a chance to answer. “That depends on the author, the books, the route they take. There is no one path or surefire way to be successful in this career.”
She looks like she’s about to move on, but the professor stops her. “If there is one thing I’ve learned from years and years of mentoring writers, being friends with authors, and the one book I nearly published thirty years ago, it’s that you can’t be in this for the fame, glory, or money, young man.”
Young manwas a stretch, but Dr. Potts did have white hair mixed in with his dark.
“You have to do it because you love it,” he continues. His gaze shifts to me, but he keeps addressing the group. “Because you can’t do anything but write. Maybe there are exceptions to the rule, but if you want contentment in your career, do it for the love, and the rest will level itself out.”
Do it for the love. I always have. Writing is in my blood. So maybe that’s where I’m off. I’ve been forcing the wrong thing, trying to give my publisher the book they need. Using stakes the readers will like, but that I don’t care anything about. Maybe I need to listen to Piper’s adviceandfollow what Dr. Potts is saying. Not just write my dad’s story, but write what my heart is screaming to get out. Forget the stakes I think I need. Maybe if I let it loose, I’ll be free to tell any story I want to again.
It certainly couldn’t hurt to try.
