stack of papers.
Alma was writing The Book of Forgotten Moments. It was part memoir, part rumination on the mysteries of life and part philosophy on the nature of love. Alma had a lovely wrinkled face, high cheekbones and gray green eyes, her white hair was cut spiky and she dressed in loose-fitting organic cotton shirts and trousers. She wrote the most gorgeous sentences. She had Virginia Woolfs one-hundred and eighty-one word sentence beat by five words. Chase loved when they read Alma's work.
Alma's book was literary and probably would never be published just for that reason. Chase felt like Alma taught them about using words to paint pictures in the reader's mind. The rest of them, Chase included, wrote plot-driven fiction. Theirs were stories where point A led to point B in a quick and concise manner. Alma's stories were filled with images of the garden, the sky, the raging river, the seedy motel with its dirty linen and the lost memory. Their work was a rush to the finish. Hers was a meandering path through a wildflower garden.
"Here, give the pages to me," Chase said. Everyone stared at her with interest. "I need a few minutes with them."
"Why don't I get us all coffee," Bo said. A good-looking, stylishly dressed dark-haired beauty with his cleft chin and aquiline nose, he should have been a model for International Male, but instead while working at Starbucks he wrote guy-to-guy mysteries, as yet unsold, and short porn stories for fag magazines.
"I'll help," Delia offered while gazing with apparent admiration at Chase's soon to be displayed abilities.
Delia had made it more than evident that she was in total awe of Chase and would fuck her on demand. Chase found this slighdy intriguing but also repulsive. She was thirty-seven and Delia was twenty-three. She realized that at Delia's age she had been like that, fascinated by older women, but unlike Delia had no confidence to pursue them. Rather she had engaged in hero worship and fantasies of being discovered as a misunderstood genius and subsequently mentored and fucked senseless. She would never admit this to anyone. Time had been a great and brutal teacher and she'd become the older woman.
While Bo and Delia clanked the coffee things around, peering and whispering in her direction, Chase reconstructed Jasmine's twenty pages—slashing and rearranging, until she got a sense of the plot moving in a better and clearer direction. When she looked up, Delia was handing her a cup of coffee and Alma was smiling at her with sagacity.
"Take a look." Chase handed the manuscript to Jasmine.
Jasmine quickly perused the pages while the others waited. She studied the manuscript like an ER doctor ascertaining the patient's cuts and bruises. She looked up indignant. "You cut the gym scene, made my protagonist fat and ugly and put the murder on the first page. How could you?" Jasmine crossed her legs and scowled at Chase.
Shirley Temple was pissed, Chase thought. She looked like someone had just stolen her umbrella drink.
"I think it sounds brilliant. Can I see it?" Bo asked.
"Feel free." Jasmine handed him the manuscript as if it were used toilet paper. "I don't like it anymore."
"That's good," Alma said.
"Why?" Jasmine asked. She sipped her coffee, her eyes still blazing.
"Because you've divorced yourself from it."
"I don't get it," Delia said, as she read the manuscript over Bo's shoulder.
"Now, Jasmine can work on it without being invested in every word. She's too close to it," Chase said. She put more milk in her cup. Bo always brought coffee from Starbucks and she found it much too strong and too many cups gave her heart palpitations.
"Exactly," Alma said. "And making your protagonist so different from you will make you create a character instead of a male version of yourself which is what you are doing."
"Is it that obvious?" Jasmine asked, chastened.
Bo handed the manuscript to
Alma was writing The Book of Forgotten Moments. It was part memoir, part rumination on the mysteries of life and part philosophy on the nature of love. Alma had a lovely wrinkled face, high cheekbones and gray green eyes, her white hair was cut spiky and she dressed in loose-fitting organic cotton shirts and trousers. She wrote the most gorgeous sentences. She had Virginia Woolfs one-hundred and eighty-one word sentence beat by five words. Chase loved when they read Alma's work.
Alma's book was literary and probably would never be published just for that reason. Chase felt like Alma taught them about using words to paint pictures in the reader's mind. The rest of them, Chase included, wrote plot-driven fiction. Theirs were stories where point A led to point B in a quick and concise manner. Alma's stories were filled with images of the garden, the sky, the raging river, the seedy motel with its dirty linen and the lost memory. Their work was a rush to the finish. Hers was a meandering path through a wildflower garden.
"Here, give the pages to me," Chase said. Everyone stared at her with interest. "I need a few minutes with them."
"Why don't I get us all coffee," Bo said. A good-looking, stylishly dressed dark-haired beauty with his cleft chin and aquiline nose, he should have been a model for International Male, but instead while working at Starbucks he wrote guy-to-guy mysteries, as yet unsold, and short porn stories for fag magazines.
"I'll help," Delia offered while gazing with apparent admiration at Chase's soon to be displayed abilities.
Delia had made it more than evident that she was in total awe of Chase and would fuck her on demand. Chase found this slighdy intriguing but also repulsive. She was thirty-seven and Delia was twenty-three. She realized that at Delia's age she had been like that, fascinated by older women, but unlike Delia had no confidence to pursue them. Rather she had engaged in hero worship and fantasies of being discovered as a misunderstood genius and subsequently mentored and fucked senseless. She would never admit this to anyone. Time had been a great and brutal teacher and she'd become the older woman.
While Bo and Delia clanked the coffee things around, peering and whispering in her direction, Chase reconstructed Jasmine's twenty pages—slashing and rearranging, until she got a sense of the plot moving in a better and clearer direction. When she looked up, Delia was handing her a cup of coffee and Alma was smiling at her with sagacity.
"Take a look." Chase handed the manuscript to Jasmine.
Jasmine quickly perused the pages while the others waited. She studied the manuscript like an ER doctor ascertaining the patient's cuts and bruises. She looked up indignant. "You cut the gym scene, made my protagonist fat and ugly and put the murder on the first page. How could you?" Jasmine crossed her legs and scowled at Chase.
Shirley Temple was pissed, Chase thought. She looked like someone had just stolen her umbrella drink.
"I think it sounds brilliant. Can I see it?" Bo asked.
"Feel free." Jasmine handed him the manuscript as if it were used toilet paper. "I don't like it anymore."
"That's good," Alma said.
"Why?" Jasmine asked. She sipped her coffee, her eyes still blazing.
"Because you've divorced yourself from it."
"I don't get it," Delia said, as she read the manuscript over Bo's shoulder.
"Now, Jasmine can work on it without being invested in every word. She's too close to it," Chase said. She put more milk in her cup. Bo always brought coffee from Starbucks and she found it much too strong and too many cups gave her heart palpitations.
"Exactly," Alma said. "And making your protagonist so different from you will make you create a character instead of a male version of yourself which is what you are doing."
"Is it that obvious?" Jasmine asked, chastened.
Bo handed the manuscript to
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