B. I. C. Cartel

… She put her water bottle down. “Here’s the deal. Each of us decides to ourselves what becoming a pro is all about. Then we do it. I’ll tell both you hairy-legged types what. I don’t care what you think, but I’m gonna be the first to make that jump …”

***

Braden Campbell is an amazing jazz pianist with bipolar disorder, and he gives up his talent because it’s time to grow up. As if driving a taxi is a grown-up occupation, that is.

Karen Watts writes, and has great credentials as a journalist and freelance writer. However, every novel she’s ever written is either abandoned or torched — because she thinks she isn’t good enough.

Robert Blair paints landscapes, portraits and … signs. But only the signs pay and a man has to make a living, right?

After years of false starts, marriages, abusive relationships, divorces, substance abuse, madness, frequent cross-country moves and plain old self-doubts, the three reunite with a new resolve. Karen bets them that she will be the first to “turn pro” — to take their talents seriously and act professionals instead of dabblers.

To encourage and challenge one another to plant their butts in the chair and do their work, they form a support group called BIC Cartel.

They push and cajole one another and things start to happen with all three in this story of wild adventures, battle scars, dysfunction, redemption and sheer guts.