“I can, yes.”
“I’m going to tell my friend Allen about you. He writes science fiction and he’s having a really hard time finding stock photos. I mean, he needs a spaceship, so you can’t exactly expect to find that in a photo, can you?”
“No.” Frankie chuckled. “I wouldn’t think so.”
“Is that something you could do? Create custom art for his cover?”
“Sure. It might be a bit on the expensive side. All depends what he wants, of course.”
“He’s got money.” Stacy laughed. “Or at least his father does. I’ll send him your info.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that.” Then came the part that Frankie wasn’t as fond of. “I’ll need a deposit to get started onyour logo. I’ll send the invoice to your email, unless you want it sent somewhere else.”
“No, that’s perfect. I’ll get it paid as soon as it comes in. How much do you think it’ll be?”
Frankie had already pulled up the page on her website with the new information she’d just added a couple of days ago. “If we’re doing one logo and three T-shirt designs, I’m estimating that will come in around three thousand. No more than four, I’d imagine, but it’s hard to say definitively until we’re further in. But the deposit will be for fifteen hundred.” She cringed. That was a lot of money. “How does that sound?”
“Sounds great. Thanks so much, Frankie. I am so excited about this.”
Frankie exhaled. “So am I.”
Chapter Fifty-One
After a quick breakfast, Mitch went straight to his office to do a journal entry. Having Ruthie and Kyle around had thrown off his schedule, but he was adjusting. They were a great reason to adjust, and he didn’t mind.
No surprise what the day’s journal entry was about. Harper. And the kiss. And how he was going to do his best to smooth things over with an apology.
He finished that and tucked the journal away, then moved from the couch where he’d been writing to his desk.
His first email was to Lucinda to tell her about Kyle’s book. He fully expected her to give the email a nod and a wink. After all, Kyle was his son. Of course he was going to think the book was great. But he knew once she read it, she’d understand.
A knock at the door interrupted him. “Come in.”
Kyle walked through. “Hey, I just got Harper’s notes on my book. It was all really good, really positive. She had the same thoughts about some of those sections you did, that they should be tightened up. Do you think you could give me an example of what you mean by that? Sorry. I know you’re probably working on your own stuff.”
“No, it’s fine. Get your laptop and as soon as I send this email, we’ll go over a couple paragraphs together.”
“Cool. Thanks.” He started for the door. “Ruthie’s sleeping.”
Mitch smiled. “Good. Maybe we’ll take her into the pool this evening when the sun isn’t so intense.”
Kyle nodded. “She’d like that.” He slipped out.
Mitch returned to the email, adding a few more lines of assurance, then hit Send. Kyle returned. Mitch pointed toward the couch. “Let’s sit there.”
They settled in, and Kyle pulled his document up. He scrolled through, then stopped and nodded his head at the screen. “Here. I think this is one of the chapters you both mentioned.”
Mitch looked at it, read a few lines, then nodded. “It is. Now, I get that this is some setup here, you’re showing the reader the ordinary world of the police station, which is all good. But you’ve got two long paragraphs on how the electronic locking mechanism of the cell doors work.”
Kyle smirked. “Yeah, I did a lot of research on that. Guess I was showing off, huh?”
“No, not showing off. It’s understandable when you do that much research. You want to let readers know what you know. But it’s too much. I’d say ninety percent of what we learn from our research really just informs us, the writer. It never makes it to the page. But knowing it still makes the book richer.”
“So it should be one paragraph?”
Mitch grinned. “It should be onesentence.”
“Ouch.” Kyle grimaced. “Okay, I can do that.”
