Author By Chance

One; Goodbye words on paper, hello words online

3 Years prior...

Florida, America: October 2014

"Creative writing is a dying art," I hear my mother's words relentlessly repeat in my head. I try to trap the words in my head and suppress them but to no avail, so instead I play with my hands, entwining and un-entwining them.

While I do so I hear the sound of a page turning from my best friend Ian. Fiddling with the pumpkin shaped sauce bottle I shift from one leg to another. It all started as a hobby of mine to show Ian every month my short stories but somehow it became a creative writing tradition. One that my mother has blatantly disapproved of on numerous occasions.

I watch as Ian's head lifts slowly up towards mine. As usual his face lacked any emotions on it and for a moment I could feel the ground open up and swallow me whole. Breaking into a wide, almost creepy, smile, my best friend leans over the table between us and wraps me into a tight hug. Letting me go he places my handwritten book directly in the centre of the table. Biting my lip I desperately try to control my nerves as Ian decides to keep me in suspense.

One thing you need to know about my best friend, Ian, is that he just loves keeping people in suspense. He knows that I hate being kept in suspense, so, the fact that he would have the audacity to beat around the bush and keep me in suspense is literally making my nerves on edge.

"It was good," Ian says nonchalantly as he leans back in the booth.

That's it? A dull statement of "it was good"?

Kicking Ian underneath the table I narrowed my eyes at him. "It was good, why would you just say that? I shared with you something that might I add nobody else in this world has ever laid their eyes on! Something that is the most personal thing to my heart and all you say is that it was good, not brilliant, not beautiful, not amazing, or funny just good. It sounds like you are saying that my writing is average!"

Ian looks taken aback from my outburst and I couldn't blame him, even I was taken aback from my own outburst. Never in my life have I ever made an outburst like that to Ian and I already was forming an apology in my head to say to Ian as we speak.

"Look I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say those things, it's just... I made this book from scratch and... this is the first time someone has ever seen it. I was scared that you wouldn't like it."

Ian squeezes my hands, looking quite sombre as he began to speak. "Katherine, the book was good, let me finish Langford, the book had a voice that I have never read in books before. Your voice made the whole book all the more better and in my opinion completed this whole book. You really need to have thicker skin when it comes to my criticism."

I let a slight laugh and kicked him again underneath the table. Thicker skin, get out of town, I'm not a part of that Slytherin crew.

"Thank the lord Ian, I'm glad you like it. Now, do you think I need to fix a few things in my book?" I ask, analysing his face to see if he was willing to lie to me, which hasn't happened so far in our friendship.

"Yes, the character names and Chapter 6 doesn't make sense because the details in Chapter 15 contradicts it. Also, you didn't even mention me into your acknowledgements and the dedication at the start of the novel! Are we even best friends! Kidding, I'm actually not."

Falling into fits of laughter we maniacally sit in the booth desperately struggling to breathe. As usual this is what Ian and I are good at, having moments that will forever last, longer than a photo that is kept in a box locked away in the back of someone's closet.

When we finally recover I grab my handwritten book and quickly place it in my bag making sure that it doesn't fall out or somehow falls into the wrong hands. Sounds cliche, I know but that is how my creative brain works, it never stops. Let's also not forget that I am one of those people who think of the negative situation before the positive situation, sometimes it is the other way around though.