Remy
REMY
From: [email protected]
Subject: Future projects
Hello, Remy,
I hope you enjoyed the sunny weather last weekend as much as I did. Makes a nice change from all the rain, doesn’t it?!
Have you had time to think more on what we discussed over lunch? I’d like to start receiving some ideas from you in the upcoming weeks. Nothing has to be perfect or polished. Only a quick synopsis for each possible book idea, then we’ll select the best one and go from there.
Can’t wait to see what you come up with!
T x
I receive Tara’s email while sitting at my bedroom desk facing the window overlooking the garden.
It would be a romantic writing setup if not for the mangy fox taking a shit next to a rogue plant pot.
If not also for the fact that my back hurts; I must be coming on my period soon because my boobs are also starting to feel sore.
I click into a folder on my laptop titled Freeze Your Darlings, which is full of old, discarded stories. I’d tried sending most of them out to literary agents when seeking representation, but each one received rejection after rejection.
In the folder, I find a middle grade story about a spy school hidden in the depths of Cambridgeshire, and a YA fantasy that was a rip-off of every YA fantasy that dominated the market during my teenage years.
The all-female gang operating in sixties London is in there too, an idea that had developed after watching the first season of Peaky Blinders , and a contemporary, tragic romance about Britain’s first Black queen that came to me when passing a newspaper stand with a headline blaming Meghan Markle for the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
There’s no way Tara will go for any of these, but… I could send them to her, one email at a time. She averages about a week to respond, meaning this tactic could buy me at least a month to come up with an actual idea.
I send the MG spy novel off first.
From: [email protected]
Subject: option 1, MG spy novel
I know we talked about the challenges in the adult market, so I thought I’d try something new. What do you think of this?
R x
I press send and vow to return to my diary entry and the character of R, firm in the faith that the more I document, the more likely an idea will spring forth.