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This is my friend’s favorite book so I decided to give it a try. This is the worst drivel I’ve ever read in my life.
I’ve memorized the first two lines of the three-thousand-word review that I can only imagine took this reader an entire week to write. I’m no stranger to negative reviews or criticism—I welcome critique that can make my next books shine.
But it’s this reader’s presumptions of my character that have kept me awake at night. Propagating that I’m some sort of serial killer with a proclivity for somnophilia and necrophilia simply because those are the predilections of the protagonists I write. That I must have a criminal past to hide because I wear a mask to divorce my private identity from my public persona. His criticism not only attacks my character but completely annihilates the decade of work I’ve poured into my bibliography.
In this reader’s unique, ineloquent way, they’ve branded me a hack. A scourge on literature. Claiming that my Gothic horror novels are too full of violence, romance, and sex for the motifs, themes, or prose to bear any merit. That my contributions to literature ought to be shit upon before flushed down a toilet and set ablaze.
A review has never bothered me before. I’m confident in my work, satisfied with the novels I publish. I have fans across the world who buy every book I write and send letters professing their love for my books, and on occasion, me. Readers who pushed my fourth novel—published by the only small press thatexpressed a modicum of interest in it—onto the New York Times Bestseller list. Then my three previous titles followed.
Yet this review from an anonymous stranger on the internet has rendered me useless. Not a flicker of inspiration has struck since the night I poured a little too much gin and settled in with the review on my screen and a thumping heart in my chest. Not a word has been typed or scrawled. Not a single character has spoken in my ear nor one scene flashed in my mind.
Writer’s block at its worst. A block that no amount of refilling the creative well can overcome.
I’m a writer without words. A pen without ink.
That’s why I’m here. On a desperate, expensive quest for inspiration. For my lost muse.
After class, I’ll question Briar again. Discover exactly what she loves about my work so I can utilize that in my next manuscript.
“Complete the reading before class. See you next week,” Professor Molester calls before he plants a hand on the small of Briar’s back.
She steps out of his grasp, but she doesn’t fly off the handle like I’d expect from a five-foot woman who snapped at me for following her across campus.
Before I can intervene and whisk her away from Professor Molester for a conversation about her favorite author, my phone vibrates. Derrik’s name flashes across my screen.
By the time I tuck my laptop back in my bag and answer the call, my biggest fan is gone.
“Talk to me.” Derrik’s brusque New Jersey accent barks in my ear.
I head for the door, holding it open for a mousy classmate who flashes me a grateful smile. Out in the hallway, I scan the stream of students leaving their classes and workshops, Briar nowhere in sight. “You called me,” I remind him.
“Right. I’m making sure you didn’t enroll in that MFA program you were blathering to me about while you were drunk last month.”
“I wasn’t drunk.” I grit my teeth, slipping past a group of twenty-three-year-olds moving at the speed of a worm across wet concrete. “I was on the brink of total hopelessness and despair.”
Derrik sucks his teeth, and I can practically see him waving his hand in dismissal. “You’re always at your most hopeless when you’re drunk. Anyway. Please tell me you’re home in that big Gothic mansion your royalties paid for or you’re at some coffee shop you writers love to flock to.”
“I’m leaving class right now. If it helps, I’m heading to a coffee shop.”
Derrik sighs. “We talked about this, pal.” In the years that Derrik has been my agent, I’ve never appreciated him referring to me aspal. “You’re a multi-published, bestselling author. What the hell do you need an MFA for? The program is only going to take up more of your time, and you’ve already missed two deadlines for your next book.”
As if I’m not well aware of exactly how far behind schedule I am. I’ve been publishing a book a year consistently since my debut released, and I’ve never missed a deadline.
I skip the coffee shop and stride out of the building, stepping into sunny, warm weather that is a hard contrast to the storm brewing inside my head. “You know exactly why I’m here.”
“You’re not still talking about that review.” Derrik is somehow utterly perplexed, as if he didn’t read the review himself when I sent it to him at three in the morning. “So he took some shots at you and your writing. It’s all just conjecture and assumptions. Your sales won’t be affected by one negative review.”
“I’m not concerned about my sales,” I snap. “I’m concerned about my inability to write. To continue creating my so-calleddrivel.”
“You don’t have to constantly prove yourself to everyone, you know. The value people put on your work doesn’t reflect on you as a person. The only reason you can’t write is because you’re letting a random stranger on the internet get in your head. Push the negative voices out and just focus on the story.”
Derrik isn’t an author. He can’t possibly understand how a single review disparaging both my work and my character has rendered that creative voice in my head entirely mute. “Let me worry about the writing, Derrik. When I have a completed manuscript for you to sell, then it’ll be your problem.”
I hang up before he can say another word. I’m not leaving Auburn until I find my muse.
CHAPTER THREE
BRIAR
