Ubertines 07: Shitty Romance Novel (579 hits)
Category: RomanceRating: 2 on 9 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by goferforhire <goferforhire.at.yahoo.com> (View user info) at 2007-02-12 02:23:17 EST
Writer's block has hit me like a sack of bricks with maybe twenty or thirty pages left in the book. Normally, given my predilictions as an author, the ending comes naturally. I'm too paranoid to let my characters live; I'd never write another book if I did. I'd be too preoccupied with previous protagonists and their potential future. If I want to have a career, I need to the kind of closure only death can really provide. I ended my first five books that way, with dead protagonists, dead antagonists, and a few dead spectators. My editor threatened to quit his job after the last one.
"Jack," he said to me, "Jack, I'm tired of this, and so are your readers. People are starting to think you're just a talentless hack. Try to at least save a few this time, alright?"
People call me morbid. People call me weird. I've been basically a loner for the entirety of my life. That was before my sixth book. That was before Rachel Osbourne.
I met her in a coffeeshop, pouring over a twenty-chapter segment of manuscript with a serious eye and a strong cup of java. She swished by like she wasn't going to acknowledge me, not that I would have expected to, but she paused as she went by. As she turned to look at me, I saw her eyes fix on the massive stack of papers I was engrossed in, and before I could stop myself I blurted out.
"It's a book. My sixth, actually. I'm taking a break from writing to do a little trimming here and there."
She pursed her lips in a gesture I might have interpreted as being impressed. I don't read women well, but I figured I had her there.
"I'm Jack Tyree. You are?"
She murmured her name and took a seat. There was a long, powerful silence as she flipped through the pages I had assembled before me and gave a small but incredibly mysterious smile. She looked at me for a second and then went back down into the pages. I fed them to her as I finished looking over them, and she absorbed them with a calm and poise that I found completely alluring. Time came for the coffee shop to close, and she handed me my work. Again unable to really stop myself, I blurted-
"Would you like to do this again sometime? Like, with coffee? At my place?" I paused, awkwardly, "Or here, if you like. Whichever."
She let out a little rush of air which was something like a sigh, and grabbed my hand. Before I could say anything, she'd scribbled her phone number across my palm, giggled a little bit, and swished her way out the door. I was stunned. Utterly stunned.
Back at home, I skimmed through the pages of my manuscript a little bit, just trying to get a feel for where the plot was going next.
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Chapter 17
Rachel Osbourne woke up to an empty house. The man was gone, and there was no sign of his presence anywhere; no trace hairs strewn across a pillowcase, no stray sock abandoned in a corner- not so much as a smudge on the glass. She wandered from room to room in a dream-like state, trying to find something to prove he was real, but nothing showed. She was alone in a glass house, once again.
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I think I'm going to kill her. There's no reasonable way within the context of the story, but God... I love her too much to let her live.
You artists out there, have you ever created a painting so beautiful that you have to tear it to pieces, or simply throw a little brown smudge somewhere just to keep it from being truly perfect? Do you ever make a sculpture so astounding that you hate it for its lack of context? For your inability to see anything other than what it is? Something so wonderful must have a world full of wonderful friends.
What I do is I break the noses off my sculptures intentionally. I refuse to be held captive by my creations. I am in control as a writer. I kill them because that is my right, as an author. Rachel is no exception. She's a beautiful character, and I'll be sad to see her go, but I am going to have to kill her off to keep myself from worrying about where her life is going.
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Chapter 48
Rachel looked in the mirror and saw for the first time that her right eye was significantly bigger than her left. She saw a nose that leaned ever so slightly to one side, hair that was starting to gray, and to fray around the edges. She saw wrinkles and lines and sagging skin and veins and for the first time in her life she felt completely... imperfect. She could hear Jack snoring in the other room, and she hated him for it. She hated him for his complete happiness in the face of his flaws.
Without contemplating any long-term consequences for her actions, she took her husbands straight razor from out of his kit, turned the water on in the sink, and began to carve her arm into tiny little slices of skin. By the time the poor man had awoken, she was already far gone.
************************************************
Rachel Osbourne woke up in an empty house. There was no trace of Jack anywhere, no characteristic brown hairs in the sink, no pencil smudges on the sheets or crumpled balls of paper in the trash. He was completely gone. Trying to suppress her frustration with his increasingly hermetic nature, she through a sweater on, hopped into her green Nissan Altima and headed over to his home to check on him. He had probably just been struck with a sudden inspiration during the night.
When she arrived, she found his car parked sloppily by the side of the road, which was unusual considering his normally fastidious nature. Increasingly uneasy, she rang the doorbell a few times before waiting for an answer. It came eventually, but the pause was just long enough to draw her nearly into a panic.
"Who are you?" He asked, staring at her with narrowed, unfamiliar eyes.
Momentarily taken aback by the question, it was a few seconds before she responded with "Rachel. Rachel Osbourned. What are you getting at Jack?"
He furrowed his brow and continued as though he hadn't heard a word she'd sead, "Whatever it is, I don't want any. Go sell to some other piece of white trash, or just get a real job like the rest of us."
The door slammed in her face. Rachel stood in front of it for a long time before she found the strength to move, but when it finally came, she slowly walked to her car in a confused daze. As she reached for the door, she heard a crash of breaking glass and saw the entirety of Jack's manuscript fly through the window. It landed in a heap and papers went flying across the yard like spores from a dandelion. She picked one up, read it, and in a panic grabbed for others. To her horror, she realized that he had written nothing past chapter 20. Each subsequent page read simply-
"I'm sorry."
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I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a murderer. I saw a man who had taken more lives than he had put into the world and a failure. I am a miserable writer, and a worse person. Because of me, a good little girl was dead, drowning in a pool of her own blood somewhere. I ought to be ashamed. Taking my manuscript in my hands, I hurled it through the window and then, too horrified to contemplate any other course of action, I dashed his wrists against the broken glass. As I lay dying, a smile crept across my face.
At least I won't have to worry about where my life is going.
User Reviews
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2007-02-13 22:39:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ah, do you write the stories or do the stories write you?
I'm still undecided.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-02-13 19:28:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is so, so good. You did a lot with this in few words. Needs a good proofread, but the story fucking rocks.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2007-02-12 17:23:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-02-12 14:57:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2007-02-12 10:56:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Bastard!
I could give you a sob story that may make you want to throw this round in my favour.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-02-12 08:59:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Bart: So, like sometimes you can do stuff that you think is pretty bad
so other kids will like you better?
Homer: You're not talking about killing anyone, are you?
The Telltale Head
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2007-02-12 07:27:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by locksly (user info) at 2007-02-12 03:16:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2007-02-12 02:38:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2