The Imperfect Author

Chapter One: Stories and Smiles

There is absolutely nothing remotely perfect about the world. At all.

Happy endings don't happen, wishes never come true, wild, exciting adventures cannot take place.

Real life is boring.

Nicole spun her standard issue ball-point pen between her fingers, making the company logo turn into a blur.

If she lived in a story, she wouldn't be the main character.

She wasn't important.

Even if life was like an exciting novel, the reader would never even know she existed.

Authors don't write books about boring, average looking people leading boring, average lives.

No one wants to read about reality.

"Edit," commanded the harsh voice of Megan's boss, dropping a pile of manuscripts down upon her desk. "D'you think I pay you to sit there?"

She shook her head glumly, swiveling her chair to face the desk and picking up the first stack of crisp, stapled pages.

Every single day she sat at this desk, in her tiny cubicle filled with pictures of her pet dog Stuffy, reading words written by hopeful authors.

She peered around the cubicle wall to see the pinstriped coat of her boss retreating toward his office, ant then lay her head down on top of the 20,321 word story about the love-life of a nerd and a drug addicted teen.

She absolutely hated this job.

Nicole pulled open the single file cabinet the publishing firm had given her.

Under broken pens, crumpled papers, and vetoed manuscripts she found a clean sheet of paper which she slid into her small typewriter.

Her fingers hovered above the keyboard, mind blank.

She could create any world she wanted.

It had been a perfectly normal day until the unicorns came.

She began, the keys clicking rapidly.

"What're you up to, Nicky?" The high-pitched voice of her cubicle neighbor Clara interrupted her thoughts.

"I'm writing a story, Clara," muttered Megan, turning in her swivel chair so that she hid the words on her paper.

"What's it about?" Clara inquired, picking absently at the pink gel on her perfectly manicured fingernails.

"A perfect world," Nicole sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. She really didn't want to deal with Clara right now.

In her story, Clara would be a princess who was about as useful as a toothpick wrapper.

Nicole quickly scribbled that idea down on a yellow sticky note, eyes still trained on Clara.

"No one wants to read about that crap," Clara told her, rolling her eyes. "People like drama, violence, sex! You can't write a book without those three things."

"Go away, Clara" Nicole frowned, turning back to the paper on her typewriter. She didn't want to write a book like that, she wanted to write something different, something that would make the reader feel warm and bubbly inside.

"Suit yourself," Clara said sniffily, hitting the wall of the cubicle with her hip as she left.

Nicole read the sentence on her paper, sighed, and ripped it out of the typewriter, crumpling it and tossing it in the bin. A second later she fished it back out again, straightened out the wrinkles, and began to type again.

She called her main character Kelly, after her mother.

Maybe tomorrow she would visit the hospital and show the story to her. It might cheer her up. Maybe she would even smile.

Nicole couldn't remember the last time her mother had smiled.