Contemporaneous: Chapter 18
18. Wednesday, I go into work for the morning, but come lunchtime (Autumn ducking her head out of her office to wish me luck) I’m out of there and catching a train into the city (I hate driving into the city) to meet my publisher, Regina, for lunch – well, actually, she was appointed fiction publisher after I was signed and had my two books published, and I’ve only dealt with her briefly, and unsatisfying, over email. She’s only thirty or so, which worries me because I’m ageist – I’ve dealt with younger people in the publishing industry, and they think they know everything. I know that because when I…
Contemporaneous: Chapters 16 – 17
16. I leave Melody’s manuscript sitting there in my email, festering like … and I can’t come up with metaphor or simile that will illustrate what a festering, diseased, terminal clusterfuck it is, so I’ll just say that it sat there in my email, festering like only her manuscript could. Despite my disdain, I still want to get the best out of it and out of Melody, so I need to work out a strategy. But I’m frazzled now. And feel an edge, like Melody’s dismissal isn’t the indifferent vainglory of some cocky young writer, but divine condemnation that exemplifies my own failures. There are other manuscript on my…