Part the First: Esme's New Job
When one is without plot or inspiration, what could be better than poking some fun at oneself? After all - aren't most early novels largely autobiographical?
Esme breathed deeply over her coffee mug, warming her hands and allowing the bitter heat to steam her glasses. “This,” she thought, taking a long pull from the chipped blue mug, “must be what Mana was like.” She leaned back in her desk chair and sighed, inwardly wincing and laughing at the idea of great storm clouds of coffee gathering over office buildings everywhere, and raining the down on sluggish office workers.
If that ever did happen, she could think of a few people she’d like to see forget their umbrellas.
Being down-sized had been the best thing that ever happened to her (a fact she reminded herself of in front of the mirror each morning, on the advice of her friend Suzy (who learned the technique from a doctor so well respected he did all his care-giving on tv)). She had hated working in the cube-farm, being forced to make small talk about diets and reality television with people she was sure spent all the time not working on things she had needed to make that important production deadline – but rather gossiping at the watercooler about her. She knew they thought she was snobbish because she wouldn’t dish dirt about her fellow co-workers. She found that kind of thing distasteful and childish.
Besides which, she was certain That Bitch Becky in accounting (with her designer label clothes and terrible bottle blonde) had turned everyone against her just because she had suggested some of the reimbursement issues the company had been having might have been due to some laxness on Becky’s part. Shunned by the whole office, just because she was trying to be proactive. Was it her fault that people like Becky only knew how to move up in the world by lying on her back (Esme was sure it was true – the whole office said so). Clearly whomever she was making time with was high up in the company because it wasn’t too long after that Esme found herself standing bewildered at the bus-stop – carrying a Staples box full of her smiling Happy Face desk trinket collection, looking at her now defunct name plate “Esmerelda Harrison, Receptionist.”
That.
Bitch.
Becky.
Deep breaths, Esme. Deep breaths. This is the best thing that has ever happened to you. You have freedom now. You can pursue your Big Dream.
She glanced around her home office approvingly – it was cramped- floor to ceiling bookshelves; overstuffed with papers and books till they threatened to topple, crowded every available wall. Dog-earred writing books, from Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones” to Stephen King’s “On Writing” were crowded her desk in haphazard piles, their pages so high-lighted they seemed to give off their own yellow halo.
This was the kind of space she belonged in – comfortable and full of creative chaos; not gray rooms with fluorescent lighting and rows and rows of straight lines, like some suburban prison. She had fallen in love with Ray Bradbury’s cluttered office when watching his show as a child – and stopped organizing her living space ever since. It suggested to her a certain mad freedom…freedom to let her mind go where it might. This is where she would create – this is where she would finally give in to her secret desire: to be a writer – a real writer. Sure, she had her fanfic on her friend’s “Superheros Make Super Loves” website, and that was certainly something. (Her mother had suggested that if she must “write that garbage” she shouldn’t put it on the Internet – at least not under her own name – but when her readers swooned at her tales of Green Lantern and the Wonder Twins – she wanted them to know it was her bringing happiness. When she lost her job, her mother suggested including that staging on of the stories in her office building (and having the Legion of Doom kill-off fictional versions of many of her co-workers) may have led to her being let go – but Esme knew it was That Bitch Becky. Esme secretly hoped That Bitch Becky had read the story – she would like to have seen her perfectly made-up face react to Lex Luthor’s bodyguard slamming the head of ‘That Bitch Betty in Accounting’’s head in the lumbering old Xerox machine over and over again.))
But Esme was growing tired of mere Internet fame. She wanted to see her name in print, preferably above a picture of Fabio (or a Fabio-like man) with a swooning heiress in his arms. She wanted to be someones whose books were sold at airports and written about in the magazine she saw at the doctor’s office: important one’s like “Woman’s Day” and (when she wrote her children’s novel – she had much more original ideas than JK Rowling) “Highlights.” She smiled and stretched, imaging her name on the page – right next to “Goofus and Gallant.” (Inspiration! She grabbed a piece of nearby scrap paper and scribbled “Goofus and Gallant slash fiction – bad boy teaches a good boy a thing or two!) and pinned it to the corkboard which was sitting on the floor (languishing for two years to be hung) next to her desk.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to make a living at it right away. But she couldn’t pass on this chance – she had to take this opportunity to find a job that would accommodate her personal projects and still pay her enough to maintain the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. (She had, two month’s into her unemployment, briefly considered answering some receptionist ads. It would have been a step backwards (or at least, sideways) she knew – but she had to admit her receptionist duties had given her plenty of time to write. After all – the filing never had to be done right away – and most people were so used to being put on hold when calling large companies that they didn’t even seem to notice when she’d leave them on hold for long blocks of time when inspiration struck. (She hated it though when some people, like That Bitch Becky) would interrupt her to ask her to fax something. Couldn’t they see she was busy?)
Luckily, before she convinced herself to go to Kinkos and fax her resume to a local real estate company, an Craiglist ad caught her eye. “Writer’s Wanted. Make money from home working for an international company. Flexible hours – how much you make depends on how much you work.”
She emailed them a writing sample straight away.
There were two tense hours of latte’s and Snood playing before her email “ding”ed (the triumphant sound of a character leveling up in “Everquest”) letting her know she was a proud new employee of NSI. In her introductory email they sent her a detailed job description, a list of email addresses, and an assurance that her demonstrated use of “creative spelling techniques” was an added bonus for the job. (Esme inwardly beamed when she read that – she always felt it was more important for an author to get their meaning across – things like spelling and grammar were the jobs of editors – not writers!)
The job description was a dream come true – it would allow her to work on her character development and storytelling skills. Sure – there was a barebones format she had to follow, and some suggested prototypes – but she had free reign to develop her character’s background as she saw fit – the more tragically persuasive the better.
Esme resisted the urge to immediately blog her good news, and instead got to work right away. She created a Yahoo! email account, and loaded her list of Registered Subscribers into the BCC field, fired up her Writing playlist (AM Gold MP3s) and opened Microsoft Word.
Paid to be a writer! Never had she been so excited to wrestle with the blinking cursor on the ultra-white fake paper page.
She took a deep breath. This was it. The first day of the rest of her life.
“Dear Sir or Madam,” she wrote, “You may be surprised to find me writing to you, but I have heard wonderful things about you, and know you are kind-hearted and can be trusted….”
Esme grinned as her fingers flew across the keyboard, clicking a litany of sorrowful events, and a hope for mutally beneficial financial arrangements. She couldn’t believe someone was going to pay her to write! And it was so easy – she’d be done in plenty of time to start on her Great American Novel (and get her Goofus and Gallant story done too!). But first, things first. Singing along to Ambrosia’s “How Much I Feel” she clicked send, then immediately set about filling out her new employee paper work. She wondered why they asked for her bank account number…did they offer direct deposit?
As she as she finished that, she was going to call her Mother. Unrealistic world view indeed.
Esme breathed deeply over her coffee mug, warming her hands and allowing the bitter heat to steam her glasses. “This,” she thought, taking a long pull from the chipped blue mug, “must be what Mana was like.” She leaned back in her desk chair and sighed, inwardly wincing and laughing at the idea of great storm clouds of coffee gathering over office buildings everywhere, and raining the down on sluggish office workers.
If that ever did happen, she could think of a few people she’d like to see forget their umbrellas.
Being down-sized had been the best thing that ever happened to her (a fact she reminded herself of in front of the mirror each morning, on the advice of her friend Suzy (who learned the technique from a doctor so well respected he did all his care-giving on tv)). She had hated working in the cube-farm, being forced to make small talk about diets and reality television with people she was sure spent all the time not working on things she had needed to make that important production deadline – but rather gossiping at the watercooler about her. She knew they thought she was snobbish because she wouldn’t dish dirt about her fellow co-workers. She found that kind of thing distasteful and childish.
Besides which, she was certain That Bitch Becky in accounting (with her designer label clothes and terrible bottle blonde) had turned everyone against her just because she had suggested some of the reimbursement issues the company had been having might have been due to some laxness on Becky’s part. Shunned by the whole office, just because she was trying to be proactive. Was it her fault that people like Becky only knew how to move up in the world by lying on her back (Esme was sure it was true – the whole office said so). Clearly whomever she was making time with was high up in the company because it wasn’t too long after that Esme found herself standing bewildered at the bus-stop – carrying a Staples box full of her smiling Happy Face desk trinket collection, looking at her now defunct name plate “Esmerelda Harrison, Receptionist.”
That.
Bitch.
Becky.
Deep breaths, Esme. Deep breaths. This is the best thing that has ever happened to you. You have freedom now. You can pursue your Big Dream.
She glanced around her home office approvingly – it was cramped- floor to ceiling bookshelves; overstuffed with papers and books till they threatened to topple, crowded every available wall. Dog-earred writing books, from Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones” to Stephen King’s “On Writing” were crowded her desk in haphazard piles, their pages so high-lighted they seemed to give off their own yellow halo.
This was the kind of space she belonged in – comfortable and full of creative chaos; not gray rooms with fluorescent lighting and rows and rows of straight lines, like some suburban prison. She had fallen in love with Ray Bradbury’s cluttered office when watching his show as a child – and stopped organizing her living space ever since. It suggested to her a certain mad freedom…freedom to let her mind go where it might. This is where she would create – this is where she would finally give in to her secret desire: to be a writer – a real writer. Sure, she had her fanfic on her friend’s “Superheros Make Super Loves” website, and that was certainly something. (Her mother had suggested that if she must “write that garbage” she shouldn’t put it on the Internet – at least not under her own name – but when her readers swooned at her tales of Green Lantern and the Wonder Twins – she wanted them to know it was her bringing happiness. When she lost her job, her mother suggested including that staging on of the stories in her office building (and having the Legion of Doom kill-off fictional versions of many of her co-workers) may have led to her being let go – but Esme knew it was That Bitch Becky. Esme secretly hoped That Bitch Becky had read the story – she would like to have seen her perfectly made-up face react to Lex Luthor’s bodyguard slamming the head of ‘That Bitch Betty in Accounting’’s head in the lumbering old Xerox machine over and over again.))
But Esme was growing tired of mere Internet fame. She wanted to see her name in print, preferably above a picture of Fabio (or a Fabio-like man) with a swooning heiress in his arms. She wanted to be someones whose books were sold at airports and written about in the magazine she saw at the doctor’s office: important one’s like “Woman’s Day” and (when she wrote her children’s novel – she had much more original ideas than JK Rowling) “Highlights.” She smiled and stretched, imaging her name on the page – right next to “Goofus and Gallant.” (Inspiration! She grabbed a piece of nearby scrap paper and scribbled “Goofus and Gallant slash fiction – bad boy teaches a good boy a thing or two!) and pinned it to the corkboard which was sitting on the floor (languishing for two years to be hung) next to her desk.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to make a living at it right away. But she couldn’t pass on this chance – she had to take this opportunity to find a job that would accommodate her personal projects and still pay her enough to maintain the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. (She had, two month’s into her unemployment, briefly considered answering some receptionist ads. It would have been a step backwards (or at least, sideways) she knew – but she had to admit her receptionist duties had given her plenty of time to write. After all – the filing never had to be done right away – and most people were so used to being put on hold when calling large companies that they didn’t even seem to notice when she’d leave them on hold for long blocks of time when inspiration struck. (She hated it though when some people, like That Bitch Becky) would interrupt her to ask her to fax something. Couldn’t they see she was busy?)
Luckily, before she convinced herself to go to Kinkos and fax her resume to a local real estate company, an Craiglist ad caught her eye. “Writer’s Wanted. Make money from home working for an international company. Flexible hours – how much you make depends on how much you work.”
She emailed them a writing sample straight away.
There were two tense hours of latte’s and Snood playing before her email “ding”ed (the triumphant sound of a character leveling up in “Everquest”) letting her know she was a proud new employee of NSI. In her introductory email they sent her a detailed job description, a list of email addresses, and an assurance that her demonstrated use of “creative spelling techniques” was an added bonus for the job. (Esme inwardly beamed when she read that – she always felt it was more important for an author to get their meaning across – things like spelling and grammar were the jobs of editors – not writers!)
The job description was a dream come true – it would allow her to work on her character development and storytelling skills. Sure – there was a barebones format she had to follow, and some suggested prototypes – but she had free reign to develop her character’s background as she saw fit – the more tragically persuasive the better.
Esme resisted the urge to immediately blog her good news, and instead got to work right away. She created a Yahoo! email account, and loaded her list of Registered Subscribers into the BCC field, fired up her Writing playlist (AM Gold MP3s) and opened Microsoft Word.
Paid to be a writer! Never had she been so excited to wrestle with the blinking cursor on the ultra-white fake paper page.
She took a deep breath. This was it. The first day of the rest of her life.
“Dear Sir or Madam,” she wrote, “You may be surprised to find me writing to you, but I have heard wonderful things about you, and know you are kind-hearted and can be trusted….”
Esme grinned as her fingers flew across the keyboard, clicking a litany of sorrowful events, and a hope for mutally beneficial financial arrangements. She couldn’t believe someone was going to pay her to write! And it was so easy – she’d be done in plenty of time to start on her Great American Novel (and get her Goofus and Gallant story done too!). But first, things first. Singing along to Ambrosia’s “How Much I Feel” she clicked send, then immediately set about filling out her new employee paper work. She wondered why they asked for her bank account number…did they offer direct deposit?
As she as she finished that, she was going to call her Mother. Unrealistic world view indeed.
