#11-excerpt from my work-in-progress
Saturday, September 16, 2006

(From chapter four)

My laptop was closed, powered down when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. On the ID: my agent.
"Hey."
"Parker, hit me with your best shot."
"I was just doing some writing."
"That," the agent half-screamed, "is what I want to hear!" A pause, and then he leans in with a whisper. "Tell me about it."
Well. "I'm thinking of steering clear of my first book. Mysteries, I mean."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Do something high-concept."
"Right. I like where this is going."
"Something alagorical."
"'Young writer breaks from mold, delivers stunning sophomore effort.'"
"Something haunting. Something that gets book clubs in a frenzy."
"'Stunning; a triumph.'"
"Something that draws fresh inspiration from the ashes of tired, self-defeating genres."
"'A miracle.'"
"I'm excited about the possibilities."
"So am I, Ray. What's it about?"
Shit. "It's--I, well, I'm still batting some ideas around."
"Do you have any characters, framework or anything?" The enthusiasm that built up over the past minute deflated with a raspy twitter.
"S-sort of. I think there'll be a man and a woman. In love."
"Oh."
"And maybe a safari." This was a new idea, spur of the moment.
My agent audibly frowned. "This is a start." A new, bad idea.
"Yeah. I'm still in the basic stages, though. Still brainstorming. Coming up with ideas."
My last word trailed off into space, phonetics slicing a trail through the tangible silence. He'd hung up, hadn't he? I hadn't heard a cli--
"I'll let you get back to your brainstorming, Ray. You'll hear from me next week."
He hung up this time, for real.

posted, with grace and poise, by Jason @ 9/16/2006 11:35:00 PM,

4 Comments:

At 12:18 PM, Blogger Buddy Chamberlain said...

Writing about writing... fascinating. Entertaining, but sort of a disconnect for those of us who aren't really writers. Mayhaps this will enlighten us a bit on the pains of that world...

Keep up the hard work, dude.

 
At 1:30 PM, Blogger Twixmixy said...

is this for... the movie?

 
At 11:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think it's an excerpt, not an except. But you're the writer.

 
At 11:30 PM, Blogger Jason said...

I'm not immune to typos, Mr. Anonymous.

 

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