Alice Sugg (Zoella/Danisnotonfire) Book 3: TTS Trilogy *COMPLETED* #wattys2016

Chapter Twenty Three: Rough Draft

Chapter Twenty Three: Rough Draft

~1 Week Later~

ALICE

The last week had been perfect, maybe a little too perfect. Things with Dan were great, my siblings and friends were happy for me. My novel was finished and sent to the editors to look over, I was just awaiting a phone call to go in and meet with the editor and publisher to arrange final details. I'd made a few changes from the original idea, changed up a few character personalities to reflect my current relationship/friendship. Of course I had to get permission from my friends to 'create' a character around them and they all agreed, I even let them name their characters. To the reader they'd be reading a young adult novel about a girl living in the shadows of her success siblings and one day breaks out and makes a name for herself, but ends up in a love triangle and her reputation on the line. That would all happen in book 1, because I'd been signed up to make it into a trilogy under the names 'The Third Blogger' (Book 1) 'The Third Blogger: Independence' (Book 2) and 'The Third Blogger: End Game' (Book 3).

Dan was my main concern because I included every little 'incident' that went down between us, including the slushy incident in Trafalgar Square and the Amy drama dragging my name through the mud. I tried to reassure him that only myself and youtubers knew it was talking about him in the book, and that unless people were hard core YouTube fans they might not put two and two together. Some fans would but I was hoping other people would think it was work of fiction written by me to add more drama to the book, not that it was lacking drama. I told him if PJ and Finn were happy with their parts then why couldn't he be? Dan's answer was that he had a bigger online reputation to uphold, to which I replied with 'then you shouldn't have done that to me in the first place'. Let's just say we didn't talk for a few hours before Dan caved in and apologised to me.

I'd toned the scene down, to the point that it wasn't really that dramatic and no one would put two and two together. I just hoped the editor saw it that way since he loved all the drama elements; I had to think of my relationship and not my career. But if push came to shove Dan might have to suck it up and take it like a man if I'm made to write the scene back in. If Zoe could balance and a career and a relationship then so could I, sure she cheated on Alfie at one point with Caspar which she allowed me to put in the book because only the people involved knew that part of her life.

I was supposed to be meeting Zoe for lunch after my meeting with my editor and she'd finished visiting the studio with Dan and Phil. I'd somehow been roped into being in the pilot episode, which was a YouTube special. To make it fair I'd been placed on Team Phil along with Ben Cook while Team Dan had Jim Chapman and Carrie Fletcher. I was assured by Zoe that no amount of bribery on my part would make her go easy on Phil's team. I was pumped to film as was Carrie who'd been cramming up on her YouTube subscription box and viral videos both old and new; while I was relying on Ben because he had a whole series called 'Becoming YouTube' where he talked about YouTube and the internet in general.

As soon as I picked up my smoothie that's when my phone decided to ring, it was my editor. I found a free table and sat down before accepting the call.

"Alice, sorry about the late notice I'm ringing about the meeting with myself and the publisher. Would you be able to come into the office in half an hour?"

"That's fine with me I can do half an hour. I'm just excited that we're nearly at the end point."

I jotted the meeting into my diary which Zoe and Alfie had gotten me when my YouTube career picked up. I was usually quite organised but Zoe assured me that this diary would save my life if I jotted down meetings when I was given them, that way if something went wrong I had evidence and couldn't be told off by the people conducting meetings. It was also nice to see a pretty full schedule after the couple of empty months during my LA trip. This diary also made me look professional and showed people that I did in fact have both a work and social life. I hung up and dictated when I should start heading over, I'd take the tube because the publishing house wasn't that far away and we were having a surprisingly hot day and I didn't fancy turning up sweating like a pig.