Preternatural Too: Gyre

In an alternate universe, there had been no movie. The novel had sold a few copies and garnered some interesting reviews, even attracting the attention of the New York Times. It hadn't earned enough to make a noticeable impact on Karen's financial situation, but the argument was that it would alter her career longterm.

It had. Oh, it had. Ordinarily editors took months to reject her work. Now they did it in a matter of hours. Perhaps this was an indication that she had in fact been elevated to a new status as a writer. Or it might just mean that senior editors, overworked as they were, had learned how to use fax machines.

She'd taken to entertaining herself by reading the rejection letters aloud. She'd been shopped around so much in twenty years she knew many of these editors, and it was easy to extrapolate from their prissy Westchester finishing school tones and imagine that the ones she hadn't met sounded very much the same:

"The problem for us is that the background seems tired, and the subplot isn't compelling enough to make up for that. It's a novel that doesn't seem to have a real place in the market..."

This one had a reputation, Karen knew, for cutting all the sex scenes out of manuscripts because they "made her uncomfortable," quote unquote.

"As discussed the author writes well but unfortunately the theme doesn't seem to work well with our target audience...." Remind me to send her a box of commas for Christmas! Karen thought wryly. "We'd be happy to look at anything else by this writer except this particular idea..."

Those were the women editors. Most male editors didn't even bother writing rejection letters any more; they just called her agent and said clever things like "it doesn't work for me."

"It's not anybody's fault, darlin'; it's the tenor of the times," Tony Salda explained, rolling his consonants and cranking up the Speech: "Since the Time-Warners and the Viacoms have bought everybody out, it's all about 'product.' Nobody cares what's between the covers as long as the stockholders get paid off. Not to mention everyone's had to drastically cut support staff. Senior editors are doing everything but cleaning the toilets these day -"

"Some of them ought to be..." Karen muttered.

"No one has time to actually edit any more," Tony went on, ignoring authorial mutterings. "Unless a book comes in which will exactly fit a hole in their inventory, they can't be bothered."

Karen sighed. She knew the answer to this question before she even asked it. "So what are you suggesting?"

"Think about a sequel."

"Tsk, tsk!" Karen chided him. "Language!"

#

Karen's mind was filled with voices lately, but not the ones she wanted.

#

"Karen, I love you intensely, but it's just too complicated. You misunderstood my intentions, that's all. I wish I could explain it better, but -"

"Explain!" she pleaded with him, hearing the desperation in her voice. This was the kind of infatuation she should have had at twenty, not now. "Raymond, please, explain. I'm listening!"

"I -" She heard him catch his breath, the way he did when he was at a loss for words. That, or he would stammer. Usually so glib, annoyingly glib, the trained diplomat, never at a loss for words. In a minute he would find them and they would be bitter, accusatory, because he was angry with himself, not her. What was it in her that made her the scapegoat for other people's inadequacies?

Her ex-husband, given to ten-minute tantrums when he couldn't find his car keys, used to call her hysterical. Her mother, who lied constantly, called her a liar when the lies didn't fit. Editors suffering from midlife crises found her "temperamental." Even her landlord blamed her when his wife packed up and went back to Greece, because all women were evil, weren't they?

Raymond, please, explain. Don't just turn on your heel and walk away!