Welcome to The Spot Writers. The prompt for this month is to write a story where the main character is a creative writing teacher. This week’s contribution was written by Phil Yeats.
In
April, 2024, Phil published The Body on Karli’s Beach, the third
book in his Barrettsport Mysteries, a series of soft-boiled mysteries set in a
fictional South Shore Nova Scotia town. For information about these books, and
The Road to Environmental Armageddon, his trilogy about the hazards of ignoring
human-induced climate change, visit his website: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/
Paying
the Price
by
Phil Yeats
He trudged along the coast road to the
north of town, bemoaning his fate. He’d spent two soul-sucking early evening
hours teaching bored housewives and retirees the rudiments of creative writing.
Hours he should have spent pouring forth pearls of creative wisdom on his next
novel.
Who was he kidding? He’d produced no
pearls since he published his first award-winning mystery romance during his
final year as an undergraduate in a small university’s creative writing
program. He’d self-published it using the pen name Annabelle Granger. An
independent publisher respected in the realm of mystery novels snapped it up
and moved it from the winner of a minor award with modest sales to the top of
the bestseller list.
Two follow-up novels featuring the same
characters weren’t as good. He knew it, his publisher knew it, reviewers knew
it, and so did his readers. Sales tanked, and he soon found himself without a
publisher. Or a steady income.
As he turned off the coastal road and
down the dirt track to the dock where his rowboat awaited, he reviewed his
rapid fall from fame and fortune. There was no mystery.
He wasn’t into mysteries, but during
that final year at the university, a fellow student in the creative writing
program encouraged him. Together, they turned his initial draft into a
semi-literary novel that pleased both the readers of cozy mysteries and the
stuffier literary critics. After they graduated, he didn’t put the required
effort into the follow-ups because his mind was on what he hoped would be his
next project—an adventure romance that asked a simple
question. Why can’t society deal with the rapidly approaching climate change
crisis?
He squandered the royalties from his only successful
book on the small island he purchased and the house he built. No wonder he was
now stretched for funds and reduced to teaching creative writing classes.
When he arrived at the shore, he saw her
sitting on his dock, admiring the sunset. He recognized her immediately. Ashley
Barnes, the muse who helped make his first book a roaring success.
He sat beside her and said nothing until the
sun sank below the horizon.
“So what brought you to this obscure
point in the western hemisphere?” he asked as the sunset’s yellows and oranges
expanded to fill the western sky.
“Looking for my friend, Annabelle,” she
said.
“Well, here I am.”
“Don’t think so. I’m looking at David
Mitchell, not Annabelle Granger.”
As he rowed his skiff to his island
home, he pondered the meaning of Ashley’s last comment. The answer seemed
obvious. Annabelle was his creation, but Ashley contributed to her success. Did
that mean she was looking for payback?
If it was money she was after, she was
out of luck. He never had any.
The Spot Writers:
Catherine
A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/
Phil
Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/
Chiara
De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/
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