Page 5 of The Final Draft

Well, today has been unexpected. Welcome to New York, indeed.

CHAPTER

FOUR

JULIAN

I stare at the contact information for my writing partner. Priscilla Jenkins. I wonder why she chose that as a pen name. Master’s degree in creative writing. No big deal. I may not have a formal education in writing, but I can tell a story. Besides, my MBA from Wharton is nothing to sneeze at.

No published works - yet. Maybe she’s trying to go with traditional publishing, which is hard to break into. I’ve published three books independently, and they’ve produced decent numbers, but I would like to see them grow.

Let’s see what else I can learn about Priscilla. Prefers strong heroines. Good. Me too. Likes flawed heroes. Oh great! One of those women who prefers the male character on his knees, and not just in the bedroom. I bet she’ll create our male to be some weak, soft, cinnamon roll kind of guy who won’t even challenge my girl. I’m willing to put money on it.

I’m exasperated, and we haven’t even started this yet. We’re using software that allows us to collaborate and communicatewith chat while maintaining anonymity. Apparently, we both asked for that. We also agreed to use our pen names for the duration. Hell, Priscilla could be a single guy with lots of cats living in his mother’s basement in Kansas. I doubt it, but who knows?

I log into our secure portal and find our first assignment is preloaded.Collaborate on an outline and create characters for a sports romance. Fantastic. I can do sports romance. Sports are my thing. Any sport works for me. I’ll let her pick.

I wonder which we should do first: the story or the characters. When I write by myself, I usually have the characters and come up with an interesting story. What’s Priscilla’s method? Only one way to find out.

JB: Hi Priscilla! Which do you do first? Character or plot? And what sport do you prefer?

She responds almost immediately.

PRISCILLA: Hi JB! This is wild, right? I can’t believe we are co-writing a book. Still in a state of shock here. Professor Daniels eluded you’re a man, but he never confirmed. Is that true? You never know when authors use initials or pen names. I mean, it’s no big deal, but a male romance author is unusual. We agreed to pen names, but call me curious.

I was waiting for this, and even so, my anxiety creeps up a notch. I made it clear anonymity was essential, but maybe a gender reveal isn’t that big of a deal.

JB: Ever hear of Nicholas Sparks?

PRISCILLA: OMG. Of course. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s unusual. Different. And I like it. I’m hopeful we can make each other better.

While I’m figuring out what to say, she gets us back on track.

PRISCILLA: To answer your question, I’m not much of a plotter, so I focus on my characters and let them tell me their story. But I suppose we should agree on some basics. I can write a pro hockey player pretty well. What do you want the girl to do? I’m open to any trope but admit I’m a traditionalist, so no harems if that’s OK with you.

HA! She thinks she can write about hockey players. I seriously doubt it, but that’s where I can help her. My best friend is in the NHL, and I represent several other players. I know these guys better than most. But fine, she wants to take a shot, I won’t stop her.

She poses a good question, though. What does my girl do? Work for the team? Do they meet on a dating app? A teammate’s sister? I channel my inner Chance. He’s busy with minimal time to meet people. How does he meet women? When he’s on the road, girls hang out at the hotels, hoping to score with a player, but I can’t have him fall for a puck bunny.

I appreciate Priscilla’s traditional view. If I’m honest, I’m traditional too. It may look like I have a harem, but things aren’t always as they appear. I’m a one-woman man.

I need to know more about the setting to narrow it down.

JB: In-season or off-season?

PRISCILLA: More time to be together in the off-season, but maybe dealing with the travel schedule is part of the conflict?

JB: True.

Well, maybe she understands the reality. Which do I prefer? What does my girl want? I let myself daydream and consider the girls I know. I scroll through my phone contacts for inspiration and quickly realize most of these girls aren’t someone I’d want to be with long term. Good for a fun time, not a long time. That’s why I’m still single at thirty-one.

I keep scrolling, looking for interesting women I could model my character after. Emma Jones, Ashleigh’s best friend. She’s a teacher. So is Xander’s wife, Dani. Maybe my character could be a teacher.

Emma is a strong possibility for a muse, since she’s single. She’s tiny, feisty, and always reminds me of Tinkerbell. She’s adorable, sexy, and nope. I’m too close to that subject matter and can’t think of her that way. My character is not like Emma. I need to scrub my mind clean of those thoughts immediately.

I keep scrolling through my contacts. Let’s see. There’s Darcy Davidson, Ashleigh’s future sister-in-law. She’s interesting and endearing. A designer. That job gives her flexibility our hockey player might need. Maybe a designer.

Then I scroll to the newest contact in my phone. Harper Cartwright. She definitely checks all the boxes. Sexy, bold, funny, confident. I don’t know much about her background, but I could work with this. I’m reminded how my body reacted when she was pressed up against me, and I’m liking where this is going. My character development starts to form.

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