The link parade has been joined by another float! I'm pretty excited. I thought, despite everyone's seeming interest in the idea, that Bria was going to be the only one who actually joined us. But not the case after all. So, our new expanded list of links is:
Bria Burton
Rish Outfield
AND
Katherine Inskip
Katherine's story is called "The Catch," and I hope you enjoy it, unlike whatever you call the emotion you've been feeling while reading my story. Anyhow, here's my segment for today:
Brody opened his mailbox, and his heart leapt into his throat. There was a letter from the Rakowski Agency. At last, the good news he’d been waiting for had arrived. He rushed back into the house, ripping the envelope open as he walked. He sat on the couch as his eyes made it past the formalities and saw the words “regret to inform you.” He couldn’t read any further. He threw the envelope and its letter across the room.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” he shouted. That was the final rejection notice. He’d now received one from every single agency he’d sent his book out to. All but one agency had replied with a form rejection, but one of them had decided to take the time to crush his dreams, and gone through pointing out every fault his book possessed from the “wooden characters” and “asinine plot” to the “copious misused homophones” and “wildly unimaginative concept and title.”
The Rakowski Agency was the last straggler. Brody could continue to hold out hope until they finally weighed in and let him know if it was a go or a no go. But now, they had finished him off, crushed his dreams completely at last. His novel was not going to set the world on fire like Suzanne Collins’ or Veronica Roth’s did. And he’d thought he’d been so clever in combining both dystopian fiction and vampires.
“Dammit,” he said again, quieter this time. He was suddenly taken with the idea that perhaps he had read it wrong. He’d only allowed himself to make it to the “regret to inform you” line, maybe it had said, “we regret to inform you that we’re gonna have to pay double our usual rate to buy your book because it was so awesome!” He knew that was ludicrous, but he couldn’t stop himself from crossing the room, retrieving the letter, and double-checking whether his original assumption of the letter’s contents had been correct. It had.
His eyes filled with tears. What was he going to do? He was out of money again. He’d spent his way through his Ferrari money, and, now that his book was a failure, had no other options to turn to. His credit cards were maxed out, and there was no rescue in sight. After the last time, when he’d returned to Round Table and had his feet pulled off the fire by the mercies of Dr. Claw, he’d sworn he wouldn’t need to return again. He’d buckled down and finished that book, and it turned out to have done him no good whatsoever.
Now he was in the same situation again. He had to go back, hat in hand, to the Round Table, looking to be rescued a third time. Maybe that guy had been right when he said that no one who ever won anything from that machine went away happy. Brody had thought he’d found happiness with the money that Dr. Claw had dropped in his lap, but when it dried up, he sure did feel miserable.
Well, he thought, I guess it’s time to go back to see Dr. Claw again, and see what kind of a prescription he’ll write for me this time. But I’ll do that tomorrow. Tonight, I’m going to get good and roaring drunk.
1 comment:
"Wildly unimaginative."
Post a Comment