Chapter One #2
Danny scrubbed his hands over his face, careful not to dislodge the earphones even though he could practically recite the lecture coming his way from memory. Breach of contract. Lawyers. Returning advance monies already distributed. Reputation.
Potentially the end of his career.
He wasn’t sure how much of a threat the end of his career was since being a writer who couldn’t write had already brought that to a screeching halt.
The money, though. That was an issue. He always made sure he kept a separate rainy day fund for absolute emergencies, but he’d sunk a lot of money into buying the Birch Brook Campground with his brothers.
If he didn’t start refilling that well, he might have to dip into that rainy day fund because the storm clouds were hovering low on the horizon.
“Listen, Danny,” Colby said when the stern business lecture got no response.
“You’ve done this five times. You can do it again.
Being this stuck probably means you took a wrong turn in the story somewhere and your subconscious is refusing to move on until you backtrack and fix it.
And I’ve been doing this a long time, so I’ll even guess that, at some point, you forced your protagonist to do something against their character to make the plot work and get words on the page. ”
“I know.”
“You know it, but you’re still trying to push for what comes next. Look back. Send me what you have and I’ll give you my opinion.”
“I can’t—you know I can’t let anybody read it before the first draft is done. I can’t have other people in it.”
“I know that’s how you work. But…you’re not working.” He could hear the frustration in his agent’s weary sigh. “You’ve gotta have something for me by the end of this month, Danny, even if it’s a super rough draft. There’s no give in that.”
“Okay.” Danny sighed, wanting more than anything to end this phone call. “I want to hear the story of the melted down laptop.”
Colby laughed. “I love that you think you’re the only writer who’s ever wanted to set their book on fire.”
“Okay, so tell me the rest. Did that writer start over and turn in a much better book?”
The derisive snort in response echoed through the earphone. “No. He got drunk, cried, and then the next morning, he pulled the manuscript out of the cloud backup, finished it on a crappy laptop he borrowed from his sister, and then turned it in so he could get a check and buy himself a new laptop.”
“Ouch. You know, I’ve heard some people have warm and fuzzy agents.”
“That’s an industry urban legend. And look, maybe you just need a change of scenery.
Check yourself into a nice hotel room. Take some long walks and pamper yourself with room service.
Try drinking water that doesn’t have coffee beans run through it for once.
” He chuckled. “That was pretty warm and fuzzy.”
Kenzie.
Her name echoed unbidden through Danny’s mind. Casually talking to her about his story woes at her family’s restaurant had gotten him through the first two-thirds of the manuscript. She was a great brainstorming partner, and she was full of keen insights into human behavior.
Kenzie could help him figure it out. Usually he wouldn’t even talk about the story before the first draft was done, but he’d talk to her. Maybe he could even let her read what he had so far. She wasn’t his agent or his editor. There would be no pressure in her opinion.
He needed to go north. It wasn’t a nice hotel room with room service, but it would be a change of scenery.
“Danny?”
His agent’s voice jerked him out of his reverie and made him realize he’d gotten totally derailed by thoughts of Kenzie. “You’re right. I need a change of scenery. There’s too much pressure in sitting here in my office, trying to force words to come.”
Once Colby had reiterated the dire consequences of not getting him a draft by the end of the month, his agent clicked off the call. Before he could change his mind, Danny immediately dialed his brother Rob and set the plan in motion.
He knew he’d see Brian up north soon enough, but Danny decided to drive over and visit his brother Joey. With a newborn in the mix, they wouldn’t be seeing much of Joey and Ellie at the campground this summer.
Both vehicles were in the driveway, so Danny parked behind Joey’s truck and knocked softly on the door. Joey opened it, looking a little bit like he was trying out a zombie costume for the following Halloween.
“Is now a bad time?” he asked, and then he winced. “Not that there’s really a great time, I guess. Did I wake you up?”
Joey chuckled and waved him in. “We’d have to actually sleep in order to be woken up.”
Ellie smiled wanly from the bottom of the stairs, having just come down, he guessed. “Hi, Danny. I just got off the phone with Hannah. She said you’re going to stay at the campground for a while?”
“I know secrets are impossible in this family, but that was fast, even for us.” He stepped forward and took his new niece from her. “No way was I leaving without kissing little Julia Mary goodbye first, though.”
He settled into the recliner and made sure his niece was nestled properly in the crook of his arm. Ellie curled up on one end of the couch, sitting slightly sideways with her head rested against the back cushion, and Joey was at the other end with his arms folded and his feet up on the table.
“Okay, sleep is not a thing that’s really happening in this house,” Ellie said. “So tell us in really simple words why you’re going to go stay up north during the worst season to be up there?”
“This book is stuck and I’m climbing the walls. My agent suggested a change of scenery, and I think he’s right, so I’m going to go climb different walls for a while.”
Joey snorted. “I’m sure Rob and Hannah will appreciate that after all the remodeling they did this winter.”
Danny pulled the soft blanket away from Julia’s face a little so he could see her dark hair, and then he launched into a recap of the conversation he’d had with his agent.
He leaned more on words like production and marketing and less on money because he didn’t want his brothers to think they’d gotten him in over his head financially.
But he made it pretty clear the only thing he could worry about now was finishing the book.
When he looked up, his brother and sister-in-law were both sound asleep. If he wasn’t holding Julia, who was currently nothing short of angelic but could give an air raid siren a run for its money when she was unhappy, he might have been offended.
Instead, he settled back in the chair and watched the rerun of an old investigative drama series that was on the TV. They’d muted it when he came in, but the closed captioning was on, so he didn’t have any trouble figuring out what was going on.
At one point, Ellie jerked awake, her eyes wide as she tried to track where she was and—more importantly—where Julia was. Danny put his finger to his lips, and her body relaxed. She gave him a questioning look, but he waved his hand to let her know he was fine. Within seconds, she was asleep again.
Danny had only intended to stay for a few minutes, but Julia was content, and Joey and Ellie needed the sleep.
He could hang out longer, and, if everybody was lucky, they might be able to nap until Nora got home from school.
That last step off the bus seemed to launch her into a new energy mode, and she had a tendency to burst through the front door all talking and hands moving and papers waving.
Danny had been a knot of stress and panic for weeks, but as he rocked the baby and lost himself in the show, the knot eased. He had a plan now.
Go north to the campground. And then see Kenzie again.