Read A Dozen Morning Glories :: The Woman of Delicacy

‘It wasn’t that I didn’t want to fall in love with him but that I couldn’t, and I knew I never would. We were too different. Like a ray of sunshine and a gray cloud, his very presence threatened to ravage my world.’

I reread the novel segment three times, muttering under my breath.

I rearrange the emphasis, try to sound it out, and find a way of inflecting that makes it sound more interesting than it is, but each time it just oozes more cliche.

I can’t begin to imagine how I’m supposed to clean this up without sending Miss Lay into another fit. My smallest suggestion is met with a two-hour argument. The most glaring issues become soap boxes where she insists that her ‘masterpiece’ is ‘better’ with every red flag and run-on sentence.

“I pray thee, my dear lady, this worthless frame needs no other nourishment than your honeyed words and cherry-colored lips,” Tiff is reading aloud from her computer between shrieks of screamy laughter.

‘Is it possible that Caroline could use a word other than ‘stupid’ to refer to Harry’s flowers?’

I mark down a dozen awkward sentences, each line of dialog and narration that feels too ‘clunky’ when read aloud. Then, I stare at my screen and try to dismiss them.

I can’t have any more arguments.

I can’t tell if my head is thumping or burning, but I have too much work to do to do anything about that.

The spot where my conscience should be gets the upper hand. I can’t let the manuscript go through like this, no matter how many angry emails come through one after another, a sentence at a time like texts.

I try to switch between those and the manuscript, my calendar, and Angie’s emails, but I have so many open tabs my laptop is starting to lag.

‘All you do is ridicule every single little thing about the book. No matter how many edits I do, you’re always like “Rewrite this line.” “This character’s dialog is annoying.” “Chop this off.” “Remove that word.”’

I know I never used the word ‘annoying…’

‘Unnatural’ maybe.

But I better not try to argue semantics.

My brain is lagging.

Tabs are starting to become unresponsive and refuse to reload.

“I beg of you - Stop it! - I beg - Scarlet, stop it!” More witchy laughter.

I press my fingertips against my forehead and watch more emails pop onto the screen.

My eyes are starting to dry out and fog over at the same time.

I wish she’d consolidate her complaints or just tell me I’m doing EVERYTHING wrong, rather than crowding my inbox with more passive-aggressive arguments.

‘Romances like these are the thing nowadays.’

‘It’s all about the target audience.’

‘If you liked this style in the first place, you’d appreciate the book for what it is. But I know you don’t.’

If that had anything to do with it, I wouldn’t be able to get any work done at all.

But I haven’t been fired yet.

I’m staring between the letters and not seeing them.

My hand goes to my head unconsciously, and I close my eyes, trying to breathe out the fatigue filling my skull.

It’s ready to split in two.

I wince at the noise that seems to bounce off everything in the room just to crash into me.

“Scarlet for heaven’s sake! If you kiss me, I will bite you!”

Tiff is laughing.

“You asked her for suggestions on improving the scene,” Avis says in her ‘smiley voice,’ “Every bad chapter can be fixed with a kiss scene.”

I squint over at the chaos at the same time Scarlet glances over the red hair framing her cheeks in my direction, smiling her wide smile. She waves like we’re six blocks apart, and I just raise one hand slowly, praying she doesn’t try to wave me over.

“Actually, in this context, a kiss might legitimately work.”

Tiff is joking.

“It’ll help break up the humdrum. One line of dialog, then kiss. Another. Then kiss. You know, just so nobody forgets it’s a romance novel.”

Scarlet’s silent laugh pushes her eyes into thin lines as she shakes her hair wildly, and Tiffany’s squeals set my head buzzing again.

But if Miss Lay ever heard the things those girls joke about, I’d never be able to get her to improve a scene again…

My hearing starts to feel muddled, and I resist the urge to rest my head on the desk, trying to ignore the migraine until I have time to let it trounce me.

There are so many other things to do.

I have to figure out where the line is between improving the narrative and overhauling it…

I’m not supposed to try to change the book, just help the author make it into its best self.

Avis always calls it “dealing with the cards in our hand.”

I’d give a lot to be allowed to fold.

Somehow, there’s less spark in each successive novel Lillian hands me.

Or maybe it’s just me.

I know. I’m just unappeasable.

I pick which edits I can pass on mentioning until next time and slide them into a separate file to copy and paste into an email the second I receive Miss Lay’s new “revised” draft.

I try to sort out what things I can ignore as a matter of “taste”- whatever on earth that means - then I feed myself another page and say I don’t mind swallowing.

In the end, it makes no difference. I couldn’t have any less appetite for dirty water than I have for champagne, but I learned a long time ago to try to monkey my reactions off those of other people, however unsuccessfully.

I’m pretty sure this book would make any ‘normal’ human being gag.

‘Keep your stupid flowers! I have money of my own if I wanted flowers!’

I mark that line as an edit and try to figure out the most passive, round-about way to ask Miss Lay to rewrite this as something less objectively repulsive.

My eyes blur again as I try to reply to her last email, and I have to stop and look at the desk for a minute before they come back into focus. My brain is starting to reecho everything I perceive without thinking anything new, and I can’t tune out Tiffany and Scarlet ‘working.’

‘So concerning this line…’

That already looks too convoluted…

There are only 2 hours left in the workday, and then I can go home and sleep.

‘So this line…’

And eat dinner. Don’t forget dinner.

Sleep and then eat dinner.

That’s the wrong order. If I sleep, I won’t wake up again until tomorrow.

I should at least eat a string cheese to make sure I can wake up again.

I brush off the drowsiness with the back of my left hand, but the right hangs above the keyboard as I try to remember how to formulate a sentence that doesn’t make everyone hate me.

‘So we want our lines to be less on the nose.’

Add a ‘generally.’

‘So we generally want our lines to be less on the nose.’

Add a ‘little.’

‘So we generally want our lines to be a little less on the nose.’

And that looks like something that won’t make Miss Lay angry with me.

My brain adds a ‘probably,’ but I ignore it.

‘Caroline, you don’t understand…’

I scroll back over my library of ways to suggest ‘no.’

When was the last time I actually said ‘no?’

‘So, this line is something that’s been used a lot before…’

This way the blame has been shifted onto the line, not the author. But the glaring incorrectness grates on me.