Her Type on Paper

Chapter 1 Julia

If I don’t get some words on this page today, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.

And probably my job. Why have I run out of steam now?

A month before my deadline. After ten years writing books.

A steady output of middling novels for the romantically inclined.

An agent’s dream. Or at least an agent’s recurring dream.

The kind they don’t bother telling their friends about. The forgettable kind.

If I don’t deliver a draft of this manuscript by the end of January, I can forget about Harriet finding me another book deal.

She’s always telling me that editors want something fresh, something different.

And if I can’t offer her that, at least I give her reliability.

Sixty thousand words on a page every year.

Easy. Or at least it was easy, for a while.

Now I seem to have run out of ways to make fictional people fall in love with each other.

My usual stay at home and get it done plan was not working.

So here I am, out in the middle of the Yorkshire Moors on a writing retreat.

Cloistered away in a draughty old stately home with an onsite library and space to think.

Up at seven, breakfast in the dining room, then down the corridor to the library for the next eight to ten hours.

All I have to do is type two thousand words a day and I’ll be done.

Somehow, in an entire week, I’ve only committed fifty-three words to page. And two are my own bloody name. Julia Fay. Senior Creative Writing Lecturer, Julia Fay. Thirty-six-year-old singleton, Julia Fay. Loneliest woman in the world, Julia Fay.

That’s not true, I just haven’t felt the touch of another woman for a long time and it’s starting to get to me. But I have friends. I have family. And I have these two old men at the library who nod to me each morning, before quietly hunching over their books until lunchtime.

I know how to write. I literally teach the class on commercial romance.

I can write this novel. I can churn it out, get it to my editor, move on to the next one.

It’s just… I cannot get my head into this character.

Why is she falling for the guy who has just opened a rival bakery?

Why did I pitch this idea at all? Oh right, because of market predictions, because my publisher knows what will sell, what women want.

And it’s my job to give women what they want.

Even if that is another milky, bland cis man with a tender heart and strong working hands.

Even if that’s not something I would ever want for myself.

My own hands are taking on a greyish hue, nails a sickly blue from the cold.

I pull my cardigan tighter across my body, straighten the pleats in my skirt, and pluck at the tights rolling down my belly like a second skin.

Tucked away like this, I feel like a spectre, haunting my favourite corner of the library until dark.

I lift the glasses from my nose and set them on the table.

When I rub at my eyes, they click dryly.

Time for a break. It’s just after three, which is usually when I go back to my room and prepare an instant coffee.

Half a cup of boiling water from the travel kettle, two teaspoons of granules, twice as strong, back at it in twenty minutes.

The sun is already setting. Bleak midwinter light seeping through the wrought iron windows in the corridor.

I pass the elderly housekeeper at reception, and he offers me a polite nod.

Despite his continuous background presence, I have unfortunately forgotten his name.

Perhaps Andrew. After a week of polite nodding, I fear it is too late to ask.

A door clangs open, startling me from my drifting thoughts.

I glance over my shoulder at the tall, black clad figure coming in from the rain.

Water dripping off their thick leather jacket, down the helmet tucked under their arm.

They run a hand through their hair, pushing long blonde tendrils back from their face.

Angular and pink. A blur without my glasses.

“Is this reception?” Their deep, resonant voice echoes in the cramped corridor. Louder than the hushed whispers I’ve grown used to. And oddly familiar. “Great, I’d like to book a suite.”

My blood runs cold. I do know that voice.

“Melissa Turner.”

Mel-fucking-Turner. Only she would rock up to a retreat without booking.

I pivot onto the stairs as the housekeeper adds, “I’ll put you in room one-oh-three.”

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

***

From my bedroom, I hear the rattle of keys in the door opposite mine.

Then a sigh and the heft of a dropped bag.

More rattling and the door shushing open, the creak of wooden floorboards, and the bolt clicking back into place.

Silence again. I grab my coat from the rack and pull my own door open, coffee long forgotten.

Outside I feel too exposed, my skin indoor-soft and sensitive.

Rain needles at my cheek as I power walk along the gravel path towards the gate.

Past the jauntily tipped vintage Kawasaki, steaming in the rain.

Her bike, the one I’ve seen on social media a hundred times.

Countless videos of Mel bent over that frame, thighs gripping the leather, face obscured by a mirrored helmet, but somehow knowing she’s smiling that cocky little smirk of hers.

My silver sedan is tucked between two SUVs.

For a moment, I am tempted to jump in my car and get out of here, go for a drive.

Get some space. But to where? It’s miles to the nearest town and nothing will be open on a Sunday.

And that’s the point. I’m supposed to be away from everything.

I’m supposed to be focussing. But how can I focus now that she is here.

Mel Turner. Dark horse of our MA programme.

Barely ever attending seminars. Skulking through feedback sessions on her phone, building her digital empire.

That striking face and six-foot frame amassing quite the following on social media.

Before we’d even graduated, literary and modelling agencies were fist fighting to represent her, publishers on their knees to tap into that three million following, and then she had the press gagged with her extremely queer debut novel, Knuckles to the Sun.

A blatantly over-exaggerated autofiction of her motorbike travels across Europe.

I read it, of course. Twice. Had to see what all the fuss was about.

Why Noelle Yian at The Novel Times had called her, A literary genius poured into the body of a lingerie model.

Don’t get me wrong, her writing is good, but genius?

An interesting story, yes, compelling, and immersive, fine.

But technically the plot was all over the place.

Only Mel Turner would get away with abandoning all the rules of storytelling and sell millions of copies worldwide.

It's not jealousy that makes me dislike her. It’s how arrogant she is.

How little she takes writing seriously and yet how brilliant everyone thinks she is.

It’s not literary genius that got her a book deal.

It’s her beautiful, androgynous face with that charming asymmetrical smile.

It’s her easy confidence, her onscreen persona and the parasocial relationships that people have formed with her online.

Watching Melissa and her stunning French girlfriend share their decadent little bubble with millions of followers.

A lifestyle paid for by partnerships and articles.

That’s not proper writing, that’s blogging.

We’re not in our twenties anymore. Some of us take writing seriously.

Some of us are here to write a fucking novel.

This thought kicks something to life in my brain and I circle back round the car park to the front of the building, shoving the door open and stalking back to the library.

Back at my comfort spot by the window, I shuffle my laptop awake with intention.

Rage, or spite, or something else ugly and motivating coursing through my blood.

But as soon as my laptop screen wakes, I am confronted by the horribly blank page again.

Cold dread washes over me. I just do not care about this story. But it’s all I have.

To try and rekindle my motivation, I open the folder of presentations I have given at seminars for creative writing students.

Loading old lecture notes on the fundamental beats of a story, a doc on the technical toolbox of editing, and a third on mastering your voice.

I will treat myself like a student; go over the basics and start afresh.

Remind myself that this is a craft that I have learned, a skill that I have honed over a decade of practice.

I know how to write a story. I just have to get my head back in the game. Avoid unnecessary distractions.

***

At seven, the tinkling alarm on my phone reminds me about dinner.

The surly onsite chef, Jack, will only accept orders until seven thirty, so I have to make sure I don’t forget.

The first few days, I imagined myself fully immersed in the story, needing the reminder.

But in truth, I’ve been clock watching for the past hour, a knot of anxiety tightening in my stomach as the hands tick closer to seven.

Mel will be at dinner, taking up space at the table with her long limbs, and husky voice.

She might even expect me to recognise her, say I’m a fan, ask her about her latest travels.

I snatch up my leatherbound notebook and fountainpen.

But I’ll be busy writing, jotting down ideas and plotting the arc of my story.

The dining room is empty, not even the shuffling newspapers of the younger old man, or the dry cough of the older old man to cut through the silence. Chef Jack arrives, opening his notebook with a practiced flick of the wrist.