Okay, so I’ve slashed 15,000 words from my manuscript. Great, I tell myself. Good job. Only 10,000 more words to go…
I resist the impulse to lay my head down on my MacBook and cry.
Writing the book was the easy part. But cutting out nearly a quarter of those lovingly-crafted words? Not nearly so easy.
Yet that’s exactly what I have to do if I want to sell the damn book.
I need to clear my mind, switch gears. I save my document and, on impulse, create a new one. It’s blank. Empty. A clean slate.
I stare at the blinking cursor, and I ask myself – what would Audrey do to distract herself? I curve my fingers over the keyboard and start typing.
She’d probably throw a party…
… a wild, freewheeling party, with women in sheath dresses and high heels and men in suits and ties. Audrey threads her way through the crowd, smiling demurely and holding a martini glass aloft. The men look like Don Draper, George Peppard, and Cary Grant. A black cat prowls around the guests’ feet, weaving through the high heels and wing-tipped shoes until it leaps up onto a windowsill.
After a calculated feline surveillance, the cat lands in the lap of a very handsome man. Unfortunately, it knocks the martini out of his hand and baptizes him in gin and vermouth.
“I’m so sorry!” Audrey cries. She sets her drink aside and picks up the cat. “No caviar for you tonight,” she scolds.
“You feed your cat caviar?” the man asks as he attempts – with only partial success – to blot the liquor from his slacks.
“Only on Sunday,” she answers as she hands him a cocktail napkin. “And only sevruga.”
“Ah. I see. And what about Monday?”
“Kibble and champagne, of course,” she says archly.
“What about you?” George (or Don, or Cary) asks her. “Are you a champagne and caviar girl?”
She considers the question. “No,” she says. “I much prefer beer and pretzels.”
“Funny, you don’t look like the beer and pretzels type.”
“And you don’t look like the martini type.”
He grins. “Is it that obvious? I can’t seem to hold a damned martini glass without sloshing it on myself. Something to do with the awkward shape, I suppose.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, and smiled. “Or perhaps you’re just clumsy.”
Suddenly my email inbox pings. It’s my agent, asking how I’m coming with the revision.
It’s going well, I type. Nearly finished. May have to delete a subplot or two (or three) to meet the 75,000 word limit.
Great, she responds. Oh – I need the finished revision tomorrow morning. An editor at XYZ Publishing has requested it. Can you do it?
This time, I really do lay my head on my MacBook and cry.
No problem, I email back, thinking blearily of the long afternoon and evening of ruthless word slashing ahead. Freddy Kruger has nothing on me.
“Sorry, Audrey and George,” I murmur as I save their scene and reopen my revision file. “I’ll get back to you later. George, at least you’ll have plenty of time to think of a clever comeback.”
As for me? I get back to work, giving the delete key a workout as I resume my word (and plot) chopping, and sigh.
No caviar for me tonight, either. But perhaps I can persuade Mr. Oliver to bring me some pretzels and beer…
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