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)
This thing I love, this thing I have committed my future and my hopes for success and stability to… I might not be meant for it. I may not be cut out to be a romance writer. And I am learning this… at a romance convention.
I think I may throw up.
So, I went from being a virtual hermit for the last several months to showing up in Las Vegas, meeting a guy who kind of swept me off my feet, put me in a bathtub with rose petals, slapped my labia around, and then I woke up to find out that he is, in fact, the biggest romance author in the world and also possibly a plagiarist and definitely a liar all while at the same time discovering that I may be a talentless hack in the midst of dodging a bunch of violently thrown conference room chairs… all in the last thirty-six hours.
I should maybe at least cut myself a break for feeling like a lunatic.
“Anything else, ma’am?” a nice server asks as he shows up out of virtually nowhere and I jump.
“Huh? What? Oh. No. Thank you. Or, yes, actually, could I get another Red Bull?”
I’ve already had two, but I don’t care. Vegas Cordelia is a wild child!
Goddammit. Why am I the way I am? I mean, I have an answer. A lifetime of microaggressions coupled with a particular form of dopamine surge in my yadda, yadda. I know. I get it in the broadest sense. But precisely because I know, shouldn’t I be able to control it? Wrestle my tendencies to the ground?
No. That’s not how it works.
You don’t get to be a thing just because you want it. Wanting it doesn’t make it so.
Steve just said he wanted to be a sci-fi writer and it didn’t work out. But he’s a damn, damn good romance writer. Shouldn’t that be a convertible skill? If it was easy to will yourself into a new state of being, shouldn’t someone with that talent be able to convert it over?
No. Because, as noted, wanting doesn’t make it so.
Becoming something else, something you want to be, requires hard work and dedication and intense focus. And, sometimes, even then it doesn’t work out. Because some people just aren’t destined for the thing they crave. The thing they want.
Not everyone is supposed to be a world-class romance writer. Or an easy-going, cool chick with long legs and an effortless smile. Or happy. Or in love. Or whatever.
Just a random list of things that may or may not have anything to do with me.
Steve lied to me. He lied to everyone. If someone can lie that easily for that long, doesn’t it make one the kind of person about whom one should remain suspicious? Of course it does.
On the other hand…
I’ve been a complete weirdo and nutcase since I met the guy. (And probably long before that, but I can’t tackle my whole bag of cuckoo all at once right now.) He just took off out of here with righteous indignance—I know righteous indignance when I see it—because he was making an attempt to connect and tell the truth to me and all that jazz, and I obviously hurt his feelings. Which, if I’m being brutally honest with myself about, I was kind of trying to do.
I was pushing his boundaries. I was testing how far his bow would bend before it broke. Why? I dunno. Because I’m a psycho?
Do I really believe he stole a bunch of stuff from Raylen Star back in the whenever ago? No. I’ve read Raylen Star. And I’ve read SS. And there’s no flippin’ way the mind that created Master Choke borrowed anything from Leslie Munch’s imagination, such as it is.
And I do not, under any circumstances, think that Steve Smith (SS! It’s been right in front of me the whole time! Although the Essie derivation is also obviously plausible, so I don’t know if I should be too hard on myself. I’m no Hercules Parrot.) read my ARC to try to steal from me. I’m not that naïve.
No. I threw all that stuff at him because… I’m freaked out about other things. I’m freaked out about how it felt to be with him. I’m freaked out because I let myself come unwound and be free and say things like ‘choke me harder.’ I’m freaked out because I didn’t recognize myself last night and even though it felt amazing… I’m not sure that’s what I want.
To feel amazing.
I’m not sure I deserve it.
“Here you go, ma’am,” the server says, bringing me my next Red Bull.
“Thanks.”
But I can’t think about all this right now. I just can’t. I can’t get distracted by Steve or this whole SS thing or any of that. I’m here on a mission. Doesn’t matter how I got here or what’s happened to my personal life (or not, still unclear)… I came here with a very clear set of goals. And the panel opened my eyes. I’ve been resistant to it for whatever reason, unwilling to see what I need to do to get the things I want. But I’ve got it now. And I have to keep my head in the game. I have to figure out if this is what I’m supposed to be doing or not. I have to know if I’ve wasted my time and energy pursuing a dream that’s not mine to claim or if I can really do this thing.