5. Chapter Five #2
Gus found his spot on the deck and settled down. He flopped onto his side and looked as though he wouldn’t need that lead after all.
Simon settled into the chair. It was quiet out there, except for the occasional murmur of voices or the sound of laughter.
He chose to block those out. It was much easier said than done. Because as he stared at that blasted blinking cursor, he found himself pausing to listen for Jenna’s voice. But he couldn’t make out her specific voice because it was muffled by the closed door.
So, he played an old game with himself. He told himself that all he had to do was write a hundred words. That was all. And once those words were written, he could go do something else, guilt free.
Sometimes, after he wrote those hundred words, he found his zone and typed out a chapter or two. Other times, he would reach for his phone and watch some entertaining dog videos until he figured out what to write next.
And then there were other times when it was painful writing those hundred words. It would take forever. When he finished them, he had no more words to say.
Today...well, he hit the hundred words and kept going. He silenced his inner critic and just let the hero tell him what should happen next.
He loved when his mind got totally absorbed in a story.
To him, it felt like magic. The character and the setting became so real to him.
It was almost like he could smell the smoke of the hero’s world being incinerated.
He could feel the hero’s desperation to find his faithful companion, who was a different species than anyone on earth would have seen.
Some might liken its cuteness to a dog, but it was stronger than a dog and more deadly when provoked.
His imagination skidded to a halt when he heard Jenna’s voice. “That’s the part where I didn’t like the hero anymore.”
What part? What hero?
Simon sat up straight. Someone from inside his neighbor’s place responded to Jenna’s observation, but their words were muffled by the music playing. There were more voices followed by laughter.
Was the party moving out onto the deck? He hoped not. There was something special about the deck with the roar of the ocean in the background. It was relaxing, and he’d been getting past his months-long writer’s block.
He’d hoped to finish the second chapter that evening, but now that his neighbor’s sliding glass door was open, he was distracted. What was going on over there?
He gave himself a mental shake and focused back on the little screen of his keyboard writer. Once more the blinking cursor taunted him. Instead of figuring out what happened next in his book, his mind was sorting through the noises and voices to once more find his neighbor’s voice.
He replayed what he’d overhear her say. Something about a hero. Was it possible that she recognized him? Did she know he was an author?
He immediately pushed away the idea. He didn’t want to be outed. He’d only just arrived. It was much too soon to think about moving on. Her talking about a hero was just a coincidence. Nothing more. Right?
As the sun sank closer to the horizon, Simon stared out at the ocean. His agent hadn’t had such a bad idea about him spending time on the island. His immediate response had been to turn down the idea.
But as Gwen continued to pester him, he’d actually looked up the island on the internet. He was floored by what he’d learned about the island. It even had a cute small town.
Not that he would know much about the town, except from the pictures he’d seen online and the quick look he’d had driving back and forth to the harbor to retrieve his things.
Part of him wanted to go explore the town. The other part of him warned to keep a low profile. After his ex-girlfriend had betrayed him in one of the worst ways, his face was out there—his identity public—and his ex had even gone so far as to leak his address.
In and of itself, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but his ex had done it when his final book in the series had released—when the hero was killed—when his readers were outraged. People he’d never met before were accosting him and throwing trash at his house.
At one point, it got so bad he’d sold the house and moved. It had been a nightmare. For a time, he’d lived out of boxes, moving from place to place, staying until he was found out and then moving on again.
Now a year later, the final book had been out for a while. Readers weren’t as worked up—at least that was what he liked to think. He just wanted to go back to having a quiet life where he wrote stories to share with the world. And maybe this time he wouldn’t kill the beloved hero off at the end.
The thing was that he’d always known the hero would get killed off.
It was the price one paid for living on the edge—for putting himself out there to defend the weaker species—to bring justice to the world.
He had been true to his character. The hero had made the ultimate sacrifice and saved the world. To Simon, there was no greater hero.
But with this new series, he didn’t know exactly where the book was headed, much less where the series would eventually end. It wasn’t clear in his mind like it was for the first series.
His gaze moved to his keyboard writer, which had gone to sleep. There was no point in restarting it. His concentration was lost. Perhaps he’d go for a walk along the beach in the last rays of the sun.