Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
“For real?” I ask. He nods. “Holy shit, Steve… That’s a-MAY-zing!” I don’t normally co-opt Britney’s trademark catchphrase, but it’s applicable here.
“Yeah. Yeah. Could be cool.” He seems less over-the-moon than I would have expected.
“Cool? Steve, do you know…?”
I stop myself. I was about to say something like, “Do you know what I would give to be approached by a big agency like that? That’s the whole reason I came to this thing! To try to get taken seriously in the big-time world of pro publishing!” But I don’t. For two reasons. (Turns out I really like making lists.)
1) It’s not about me. This is about Steve and what he wants. And how hard he’s worked to get to where he is and the way he had to give up his dreams to even get here. And now he’s got a shot to maybe circle back around and have what he really wanted all along. And to make it about me would ruin this moment for him. Or, if not ruin, at least turn it into something else.
2) I’m not even so sure it’s what I want anymore. I mean, obviously, I want to write and have people read it and all that, but more than that… I want to spend some time really refining my voice. Really digging deep into exactly what I want to do. The stories I want to tell. Hell, I may decide I want to write… I dunno, rom-coms or something. I never thought of myself as a rom-com kinda gal, but I am unintentionally funny according to Britney, so… maybe. I dunno. The point is, I want to give myself the space to figure it out and not have to do it under the pressure of some contract or big agency deal.
But Steve… Steve knows what he wants and has already tried to make it come into being once. This is his chance to finally make good on all that effort.
“Do I know what?” he asks.
“Huh?”
“You started to say, ‘Do you know…’?”
“Oh, nothing. I don’t know. I got distracted. Anyway. That’s so awesome. So, he’s read your work? Your sci-fi stuff? This”—I look at the card again—“this Gary?”
He chews on the inside of his mouth. “Yeah.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re biting the inside of your mouth. “Am I?”
“You are.”
“How’d you notice?”
“Because I know what anxiety biting looks like. What’s wrong?”
He stops biting at the inside of his mouth and sighs, letting his really perfect, well-muscled chest that apparently just exists that way without him having to work out at all rise and fall.
“Nothing. Just…” He looks around, then back at me. “He says that all those reviews? Those terrible reviews of my series? Of Alien Alliance?”
“Yeah?”
“He says they were all posted by bots.”
“Bots?”
“Yeah. It’s a thing on the internet where—”
“I know what bots are! Why does everyone think I don’t know what things mean? Why does he think they were all bot reviews?”
“Not entirely sure. He says because of when the accounts were created, no profile pics, blah, blah, blah. His people probably have some way of ferreting that stuff out for the people he reps though. Like, their algorithms battle the bots and some AI they have culls out whatever and the next thing you know it’s become some all-out cyberwar. Which, honestly, is a pretty good setup for something. I should write that down.”
“People didn’t hate your books, then.”
“I mean, no? I guess not? They just didn’t read them, I suppose. Y’know, if you’re looking for a new book series to read and you see hundreds or thousands of terrible reviews, you’re probably not gonna be like, ‘Ooh, lemme see what this is about!’ Unless you’re a weirdo masochist or a troll or hater or whatever the kids are calling people like that these days.”
I take a second to process this. “So, it’s possible that your sci-fi career just never took off because of the bad reviews, which aren’t bad reviews but are really just… bots?”
“Maybe? It’s been a while. We knew less about bots and all that stuff than we do now.”
“It wasn’t that long ago.”
“Life moves fast in the twenty-first century.”
I pause to think. My brow must furrow a little because Steve asks, “What?”
“I’m just trying to think of why someone would do that. Target you. Your books.”
“I dunno. Maybe it wasn’t just me. Maybe it was… I dunno.”
“Alien Alliance wasn’t your first first attempt, right?”
“Huh? Oh, uh, no. No, I had written some other stuff alongside my friends Terry and Shawn and Luke, but it didn’t sell. That’s why I switched over to this. But then, y’know, those guys went back to it and I… I didn’t. I tried, but that’s when I got crucified and so I just stuck with the romance.”
My wheels are turning. I rest my finger on my chin.