My most valuable find at that time was the web site, thesaurus.com. This computer stuff is pure gold if you don’t mind digging a little.
One morning I checked my email before leaving for work as usual and found a message that just made my day.
“Hey, Kiddo,” GQ wrote, “Just got word that we have a publisher interested in our stories. More later.”
My drive to work that day was so joyful and sunny that I rolled down the windows and seat-danced to golden oldies all the way through town. I didn’t care who saw or heard me.
As I approached our downtown office, Roy Orbison began Crying. I joined him at full volume, which in my case was a screech. The driver of the car in front of me gave a startled look in her rear view mirror and pulled to the side of the road.
I looked back too, but didn’t see anything so kept driving and crying. When I sing, dogs howl, babies cry and grown men become suicidal.
I was so giddy with excitement that I was nice to the Twit for a change. He’d done nothing to deserve it. I just felt like tormenting him with kindness. It worked. Made him crazy, wondering what I was up to.
“Hey, boss,” I sang, “Want to dance?” I held out my arms and waltzed up to him.
He ducked under my arm and hid in his office.
Once he came out to give me a new assignment and another time he hesitantly slipped close to my drafting board to ask, “Would you mind fixing this ad? Sam’s sick again and the client wants the caption to read, ‘Leader of the pack,’ rather than ‘Leads the way.’”
I gave him my best smile and snatched the page from his hand, scanned it and rendered the change. When I silently handed it back to him, he gulped and returned to his office without a word.
Now, why hadn’t I seen it before? The Twit was afraid of me!
CHAPTER FIVE
After what seemed an eternity, GQ and I received copies of our contract for review. The publisher loved the fact that we’d never met and intended to use it in the promotion of our book. At first, they’d talked about using our email names as co-authors, but finally decided to combine them artfully into the book cover instead — my idea.
Our publisher, House Afire, was a new company, looking for first-time writers and unique formats with which to launch their business. The timing couldn’t have been better.
There was talk of recording our very first meeting in front of the media as a publicity gimmick. Since GQ and I had agreed that we both should have the same agent, negotiations progressed swiftly.
Yup, that’s what they said. Swiftly isn’t how I would have described it, but then I’d never had a book published before. House Afire wanted to get our stories on the shelves by the end of the year, an unheard of occurrence. GQ, who had more time and experience with this kind of thing than I did, made most of the decisions.
I’m not interested in business, anyway. I just want to write and get paid for it.
When the time came to sign the contract our agent, Tomas Alvarez, called to say that GQ was scheduled to sign on Monday and he’d see me on Wednesday that same week. He needed to allow time for travel between our respective locations.
Sticking to the publisher’s plan, he respected our strange pact, refusing to tell either of us anything about the other. From his travel time and other clues garnered over nearly two years, I deduced that GQ lived in the Deep South. Well, that might not mean much because I sort of let slip some hints that I lived in Australia.
Yeah, right. By way of Seattle!
Tomas described how we’d meet at a place known only to him. He was so good at keeping secrets. GQ and I happily complained to each other every time Tomas refused to tell us anything more until the big day.
CHAPTER SIX
That Tomas! He knew how much I like a good mystery and played it to the hilt.
The suspense was thrilling. I admit I rehearsed in my mind how I’d approach GQ. I couldn’t decide if I should just shake her hand or hug her like a long lost friend. After all, the scene would have national coverage and we were best friends who’d never met in person.
With moral support from GQ, and the stimulation from playing the plot machine game, I finally finished my novel.
I tried to interest our publishers. They politely but firmly told me they weren’t in the market for that type of book.
“When The Plot Machine Stories are on the shelves, it might help attract the right publisher,” Tomas offered helpfully on the phone. “I have some ideas, but we should finish our current project first.”
Yes, Twitwit was my victim. He died horribly, but you’ll have to buy the book if you want to know how and whodunit.
After putting the final period to my manuscript, I emailed GQ a description of the method I created for the murder. I asked her to poke holes in the idea and prove it couldn’t be done. I had to be certain that once I killed my Twit character no one could figure how I did it until the last page.
It was Sunday evening when I finished; a profitable weekend, well spent. With a satisfying yawn, I looked around the room, noting that I’d neglected my housekeeping chores. For once I had a good excuse. I retrieved the scummy coffee mug on the handy shelf beside my computer desk and added it to the stack of dishes in the sink.
Turning around, I tripped over the laundry basket filled with clean, but hopelessly wrinkled clothes. I hauled it into the laundry room and threw the clothes back in the dryer, setting it on the fluff and unwrinkle cycle. You know. You have one; it’s where you dampen a towel and throw it in with the clean clothes and — well, you get the idea.
Within two hours GQ replied to my email. While her response was faster than expected, I gratefully accepted the reprieve from too much housecleaning, which I’m told makes you ugly.
She had written a story for me.
Except for our plot machine stories, she’d never done that before. What she wrote was a vile tale filled with obscenities and threats. A very short story, it was about a stalker, written from the villain’s point of view.
“Once upon a time there was a sappy writer called MysterIous who sent me a story to read. I forced myself to read the drivel and it inspired me to write my own tale. Here it is:
“Queenie is a bad girl. If she meets someone who is inferior to herself, she stalks and kills them.”
It was a horrifying tale and ended with the words, “And so the sappy writer suffered unmeasurable pain and agony until death finally granted her relief in oblivion.”
My hand shook as I continued to scroll down the page.
“Well, Sappy Writer, are you ready? While your poisoned bullet is just too, too cute, I have so many more ways to kill that no one would ever guess it wasn’t an accident.
“Maybe I’ll find you and show you how. Don’t they say you should write about what you
