Stories about writers are often seen as a little self-indulgent - stories about genre writers by genre writers, perhaps even more so. But having met more than one version of George, let's say I'm just...yeah. I'm being self-indulgent.
Sue me.
Ghostwritten (999 words)
At the launch party, gossip moved to Clarice Meadows, the author considered single-handedly responsible for reviving the moribund horror genre.
“She’s a hack,” George Fordyce said.
“I read one of her stories,” said the author whose party it was. “Not my sort of thing, but it definitely had something. She’s had some good reviews.”
“From grubby little populists desperate to look ‘down with the kids’.” George gulped his wine.
“ ‘Down with the kids?’ George, if you can’t keep up with the current slang, please don’t try.”
“I was trying to make a point.”
“Look, I need to talk to some people. I’ll see you later.”
George glared after her. Of course, she’d been published, now, hadn’t she? Soon she’d be like Meadows, churning out pap for the masses, while a writer like George, a serious literary writer, was left out in the cold.
He went home, stuffing a bottle of wine in his shoulder bag.
A parcel was jammed in his letterbox. George wrestled it out, and tore up the rejection letter. Hacks and grubbers, the lot of them. He didn’t pander, didn’t give readers nice little fictional lollipops, he took them by the scruff and forced them to stare into the blinding light of his unique vision.
At least he would, if he could get any readers.
He opened the bottle, and thumbed the remote.
“And next on Booklist, we’ll be talking to publishing phenomenon Clarice Meadows…”
George stared disbelievingly at the TV.
There she was. A slight woman with a nervous half-smile.
Oh, the faux-timidity of that smile, the calculated softness of that voice, forcing the interviewer to lean in, as though he were really interested! Perhaps he was, perhaps he had been taken in, but George wasn’t. George knew.
He threatened her with the remote, sneering. He could turn her off any time. But he wanted to hear what sort of rubbish she talked.
“You’re not what people expect of a horror writer. Why did you decide on this particular genre?”
She laughed. “You mean I should wear black and have really long fingernails?”
“Something like that,” the interviewer said, laughing too, how chummy they were. Bile rose in George’s throat.
“I look terrible in black and gardening wrecks my nails.” Oh, this was good, she was trying to look serious. “Horror was my first love. I think it’s a way of finding patterns in the terrible things that happen to us. But really, I feel as though the stories chose me.” She shrugged. “ ‘The tale, not he who tells it.’ Some stories have an energy of their own. They want to be told.”
George spat. Stories, indeed. It was about style, about impact. Stories were for kids.
“I’m not generally a horror fan, but I read Shadowfold, and I could not put it down. When’s the next in the series coming out?”
“Not for a while! I haven’t finished it yet.”
“But now,” the interviewer twinkled, “we’ve a special treat – an extract from the unpublished manuscript!”
She started reading, stuff about living eyes in a dead tree, and footsteps without feet.
“Bollocks!” George shrieked, leaping to his feet and aiming the remote at her. He accidentally hit the volume control, her words boomed out like the Voice of God, and his neighbour thumped the wall. He turned it up full, just to show them, then turned it off. Eyes in trees, and stories that wanted to be told, indeed.
Two days later, George was at another launch party for a Robert somebody. He’d never read the book but the editor was supposed to be there. He had already rejected George’s novel, but George wanted to talk to him face to face, convince him he could improve on the rubbish he was currently publishing. George’s temper hadn’t been improved by staring at an advert for one of the wretched Meadows woman’s books all the way on the tube.
The editor wasn’t there. Instead, there was a flurry at the door and no, it couldn’t be.
“Clarice!” Robert whoever said, “I can’t believe you made it.”
“Robert, I’m so pleased for you, you really deserve this.”
They hugged. George felt like vomiting.
He glared at Clarice Meadows’ back. She ought to be able to feel his contempt, burning a hole in her spine, but no, she was chatting away, oblivious.
Later, after the idiots had smarmed over her, he watched her leave.
He followed.
He only meant to tell her what he thought, but somehow, in the alley, thinking of the poster, the recognition, the money, that should be his…his temper got the better of him.
And he got away with it.
He didn’t think he had at first; there were footsteps behind him, and he’d waited, fear clogging his throat, for the shout, the hand on his shoulder, but when he turned, there was no-one there.
He waited for a guilt that never came. He watched the reports of her weeping fans with chilly derision. He’d rid the world of a creeping poison; and the experience would surely deepen and inform his own writing.
But now he was having problems with his work. Things were sneaking in, things that didn’t belong there.
Stupid, melodramatic things.
He found himself, in the middle of a scene where two people sat in a car park discussing the failure of their relationship, writing about footsteps. Footsteps with no feet.
He was tired, that’s all. Stressed. It wasn’t surprising, with rejections still piling up. She was dead, surely people should be turning back to real literature?
He went back to the scene. There were trees around the car park.
Some of them were dead.
They had eyes in them. Living eyes in dead, rotting wood.
George yelped and hit delete.
And started again.
***
Eventually his neighbour found him, rigid and whimpering at his computer, staring at his hands as they typed words he loathed, words that he could never even sell.
But words that insisted on being written.
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