The lie tastes bitter on my tongue, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Inspiration has been fleeting lately, and so is my attention span. This is an extremely important conversation with Meredith that deserves my undivided attention.
But all I can think about is how the hell did I end up here?
“No worries,” she says, offering me a polite smile, although her tone has an iciness to it. “I was saying, instead of circling around the same projects that are giving you trouble, put them aside. Take the next week or two off and find your muse. Find it, wrap your fingers around it, and hold onto that motherfucker.”
I chuckle softly, my shoulders relaxing, just in the slightest, as Meredith’s expression warms. “Say I find my muse and choke it—I mean hold onto it, very tightly.” I smirk. “Then what?”
“You know your editor, Nina, trusts you to put out a quality book that will have readers flocking to their nearest bookstore assoon as it drops. The publisher knows you’ll make them money, we just need a concrete idea. One you can follow through with, preferably.”
They want a new romance from me and every idea I have been trying to write isn't working. It all feels like the same recycled bullshit. Rinse and repeat. Boy meets girl, they get close, they fall in love, the end. Unproblematic and sweet.
About as boring as my current life.
Even the break-up I went through a few years earlier didn’t affect my writing mojo like this.
“Just unplug. Go to a yoga class or meditate or some shit. Anything to get your mind off of this spiral you’re trapped in.” She stares at me through the computer screen. I love Meredith, she is a shark of an agent, but sometimes she scares me. “You can do this, Jade. You are capable and your success can attest to it.”
Emotion lodges in my throat. I swallow hard, pushing it deep down inside, tucking it back into Pandora's box. I am not going to risk having another breakdown on camera with my agent. She didn’t take me on as a therapy client. We both have jobs to do and I am the one not holding up my end.
If only I could go back in time and tell bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Jade that the pressure of producing and being creative could be crippling.
“I have to head off for another meeting, but we’ll chat toward the end of next week, okay?”
“I don’t know what to write,” I blurt out, the words tumbling from my lips. It’s not news.
Meredith is silent for a moment. “Let me think of some ideas and you do the same, then we’ll see what we can come up with on our next call.” She rolls her wrist, her eyes flicking down to her watch. “Gotta run. Bye, Jade!”
Meredith’s face disappears and relief immediately floods me. I lean back in my seat, my body relaxing against the back of the chair. I push my fingers through my long hair, my nails running along my scalp. Tilting my head back, I gaze up at the white ceiling and push my feet against the floor to slowly spin in circles.
What a trend that has become recently.
Meredith is right. I can do this. This isn’t my first time writing a book. I’ve done it time and time again. I’ve experienced writer’s block before, it just never felt quite this bad. Like I am stuck in quicksand, every movement sucking me deeper into the suffocating depths.
Taking time off wasn’t unheard of. Authors did it all the time. However, my situation is a bit different. After having a few successful series with the same publisher, they asked me for something new, something fresh. I didn’t have to go through the pits of writing a pitch and having Meredith take it onto submission with other publishers, hoping one would want to buy it.
They wanted me.
They wanted anything written by me.
Too bad I can’t fucking write anymore.
With a huff, I sit upright in my chair.
You’re a bad bitch, Jade Wilson. Get your head out of your ass.
Enough of wallowing in my self pity and despair. Meredith telling me to trash the ideas I’d been struggling to write is a welcomed relief. I can’t write something I’m not feeling. Perhaps, I need something fresh. Something new.
Something exciting.
I put my feet flat on the floor, abruptly standing up from my desk. I’m not going to find the idea sitting here inside my apartment. Sometimes the muse will drift in through an openwindow and wrap itself around me like a cloak of the finest silks. Other times, I have to go out and find it.
And this particular time, I just might find it where I least expect to.
“Don’t hate me, but I can’t stay long.” Nicole glances at me, tossing an apologetic smile in my direction. “Like I have to grab my drink and go.”
Nicole and I met our freshman year of college and have been best friends ever since. We shared a dorm throughout our undergrad years and had an apartment together for two years after we graduated. When her longterm boyfriend Ben proposed to her, we both moved into different places. Now, she and her husband live a few blocks away.
Although, not for long. Ben got a promotion, which has them moving to New York in two months.
