Page 34 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

I couldn't stop smiling.

"I've been through something educational."

Her pen stopped moving. For the first time since I'd walked in... She looked uncertain. Good. I do so enjoy progress.

The room fell silent. For a long moment... I simply stared at the screen. The cursor blinked beneath the last sentence. Waiting for me to decide what happened next. I took another sip of my coffee. Cold, of course. Coffee has a remarkable ability to become undrinkable the moment an author gets distracted. I swallowed anyway. Waste not.

Gerald climbed onto the keyboard.

"Well?"

I looked at him.

"Well, what?"

"You left us with quite the cliffhanger."

"I know."

"You can't just stop there."

"I absolutely can."

"It's cruel."

"It's character building."

"For whom?"

"The readers."

Frank wandered onto the desk, peering suspiciously at the screen.

"They're going to hate Joey."

"No..."

I smiled.

"They're going to fear her."

"That's... arguably worse."

"I know."

Silence settled over us. I read the final paragraph again, then once more. Authors are funny creatures. We'll spend six hours writing a scene then another hour staring at it like we've never seen words before in our lives. Sometimes I wonder if sculptors argue with marble. Do painters apologize to canvases? Do bakers stare at bread wondering if it has enough emotional depth? Probably not.

Lucky them.

I highlighted a sentence, deleted it. Immediately regretted deleting it, pressed undo there, better or worse. Honestly after the fifteenth edit it's impossible to tell.

Gerald folded his tiny ceramic arms.

"So?"

"So?"

"Would she actually say that?"