First Draft Romance

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In the next hour of "doing whatever," I manage to bring my word count up to fourteen-thousand. My left wrist starts cramping up after forty-five-ish minutes, so I take a quick break to brew myself another mug of coffee.

I forgot how much caffeine I tend to ingest when writing a first draft. I guess I've been working on my current book for a while, hyperfixating on edits and revisions instead of allowing myself to sit down and make something new.

When I was in high school, I got really into this writing method called "zero drafting," where you word vomit up a book as fast as possible and spend more time in edits. But—maybe because I had heard how clean of a drafter Roz is, or maybe because I just got better after a decade of throwing shit at a wall—my recent zero drafts have been pretty concrete. They don't have massive plot holes or pacing issues, and usually, the voice is solid.

Their issue? They're boring.

Take, for instance, the book I'm querying right now. It's low-key a very Rosalind Lindbergh-type book. It's about this young nurse named Leona who grows close with the dying old man next door and accidentally uncovers that he's a war criminal in hiding. The main conflict is her trying to decide if she wants to turn him in or not—if it would be worth it for him to spend the last month of his already miserable, painful life preparing to go to a trial he'd never stay alive long enough to see. I thought it was interesting. It's certainly the type of book that I'd like to read. Something gritty yet feminine. Something serious, something philosophical. Something real.

Agents have thought it was good enough to send me feedback as to why they weren't going with it, but it's all been so wishy-washy that I think that there's no way anyone is going to want to take it on. No one has strong opinions about it, and with how contrasting everyone's advice is, I think it's a lost cause. I've racked up over a hundred rejections on that one—if it was going anywhere, I think it would've by now.

This book that I started working on last night is different. I think it might be a romance? I'm not sure. I don't really read romance, so I can't say for sure.

It's kinda how me and Gina met. In a way. A Midwestern college freshman with newly-short hair meets her curvy dorm suitemate in an embarrassing Target decor aisle meet-cute. And then there are arguments about where to best place the couch in the living room. Bickering at a frat party turning to kissing, turning to a steamy closet exploration. We haven't quite made it to the points past the closet yet—the closet was written some time past three a.m., and I'm too scared to read it in the daylight—but I think I know where the rest of the book goes from there.

Where Short-haired Girl pushes the Curvy Girl away. Is mean. Is lazy. Takes Curvy Girl for granted.

Where Curvy Girl goes to a party by herself, gets wasted, and winds up in the same closet with another girl. An ex from high school. A handsy ex.

Where Handsy Closet Girl walks Curvy Girl back to the dorm and kisses her at the door, where a worried Short-Haired Girl sees everything.

The breakup.

The epic makeup sex.

The should-have-been Happily Ever After.

It's so strange writing this story. Our story. I can completely understand why Roz said that this was therapeutic—it's a relief to get it out onto the page. I was never very good at opening up to people. I don't think anyone has heard this much of my perspective on the beginning of my and Gina's relationship before. I can't believe that writing has never felt this personal before now.

I can't tell if I'm being too hard on myself, or too easy on Gina. It's not entirely accurate to everything that happened. I mean, for starters, the Closet Girl wasn't a high school ex. She was just some girl, a stranger Gina met and drunkenly clicked with. There were actually a few Closet Girls. But Short-Haired Girl and Curvy Girl are better than that. They deserve a Happily Ever After.