Mason tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter of his rented cabin. Today had been a surprisingly good day. Good because he’d written an entire chapter—and although he had no idea where it was going to fit into his work in progress, it was still more than he’d written in a single day for over a year.
And he’d laughed. Another unusual event of late.
The librarian had somehow brought it out of him by calling him homeless.
Maybe technically he was homeless. The rented cabin in Pine Valley was definitely not his home, but his agent had insisted he unplug and get away from all social media until his next book was drafted.
Mason opened the fridge, which he should keep better stocked. He wished he’d done a grocery run on his way back from the library. He shut the fridge and grabbed an apple from the welcome basket on the counter, courtesy of his agent. Biting into the apple, he walked out of the kitchen and through the dark rooms until he reached the sliding door. The moon cast its silvery light across the wood deck, outdoor furniture, and hot tub.
This place would be an excellent place for a writers’ retreat.
He tried to remember the last time he’d been around his peers. It was October of last year, at a gala where he’d received another Best Thriller Writer of the Year award. Two days before Teddy Stern had filed his lawsuit.
The lawsuit was ridiculous, and everyone knew it. Mason hadn’t stolen anyone’s book idea, let alone an indie author who had written a handful of short stories and published them without editing the manuscripts.
In fact, the lawsuit was shot down within a couple of months, but the social media firestorm had been vicious, both for and against Mason. When his next book, Cut, released in February, his usual release month for all his books, he had reached the New York Times list as expected, but his release week numbers had dropped by twenty percent.
Coincidence? Mason knew it wasn’t.
Reviews on Cut were harsh—and although there were plenty of good ones, it seemed that the percentage of bad reviews had escalated.
Mason had tried not to let it bother him. His book could still be viewed as a success, but he found that, day after day, he wasn’t doing any writing.
And he had missed his April submission deadline for the first time in his fourteen-year writing career. Last month when he didn’t have a book on the advance review lists and upcoming releases lists, social media had pounced again.
Rumors swirled that he’d quit writing, that he was truly guilty of plagiarizing Teddy, that he’d moved to Canada or Mexico . . .
He’d ignored it all, of course, but he still wasn’t writing.
Every time he sat down he might type a handful of sentences, but they had no life, no direction, and no purpose. So he deleted those sentences and turned on whatever ball game happened to be on one of his dozens of cable channels.
Mason did have to give his agent credit for her patience. If he lost money, she did too. Yes, he’d had a good run, had made great money, but he was thirty-seven and should still have plenty of productive years left. Besides, what bothered him most wasn’t the money or the lawsuit or anything that anyone said on social media—it was the loss of his words.
He’d even gone to a psychologist, who pretty much told him to play relaxing music while he wrote.
His agent, Jolene, had a more life-altering suggestion.
Jolene told him she couldn’t hold him a release spot if he didn’t get his next manuscript in by January 1. He’d already missed one release year, but his agent thought if his next book came out only six months behind schedule he wouldn’t lose much traction. Jolene had found the Pine Valley cabin for rent and said she’d even have food delivered if it would help.
Mason had told her he’d take care of his own food, but when he’d arrived, there was a large gift basket of food on the counter. He wasn’t surprised.
He opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the patio. November was cold in Pine Valley, but he didn’t mind it. The sharp coolness seemed to be working by clearing his senses. And he found the only thing he really missed about his San Diego home was walking along the beach in the early mornings. But even the steady thrum of the incoming waves hadn’t been able to shake him out of his writer’s block.
So here he was in a mountain resort, looking at towering pine trees. The weather app on his phone had predicted snow this weekend—which he was sort of looking forward to. Growing up in Colorado, he’d loved the snow as a kid. But after moving to San Diego on a college basketball scholarship, he had never left. When he blew out his ACL his junior year in college, he’d spent hours in physical therapy, and he became quite fascinated by the medical industry. That, and he had a lot of time to read.
Which led to the bizarre idea that he should write his own book about an injured basketball player who became caught up in an illegal money-laundering scheme with an attractive thirty-something pharmacist. He had no idea what to do with the 350-page book he’d written, so he did some googling. A week later he had signed with an agent, and after months of quite painful revisions and him questioning what Jolene saw in the story in the first place, the book sold to a major publisher. A year later the book was released to decent reviews. His second book sold more. His third book sat on the New York Times list for fifteen weeks, where it was soon joined by the paperback versions of books one and two.
Mason pulled out his phone—the one on which he’d deleted all social media apps, as promised to his agent. She deserved a phone call tonight even though it was after 10:00 p.m. in New York. Mason knew that Jolene slept less than he did.
“Mason?” Jolene answered on the second ring. “Is this good news or bad news? Please tell me you’ve written at least fifty pages.”
No matter what Mason called to talk to his agent about, it felt that she always did more talking than he did. And she very well knew that not even a robot could have written fifty pages between now and when they’d last talked the day before. “Twelve pages.”
Jolene gasped.
Mason wasn’t sure if it was a good gasp or a bad gasp.
Then she said, “That’s wonderful. Too early to tell me the plot?”
“Much too early.” They both knew he was a pantser. The plot would develop in the first hundred pages, with a lot of rewriting, then be established by the next two hundred pages. Sort of a backwards way to outline, he guessed.
“Well,” Jolene said. “I’m pleased... was there anything you did differently today?”
“I went to the library.” He could almost see Jolene’s dark brows raise.
“Huh. I didn’t know there was a library in Pine Valley.”
“There is.” And a sassy librarian. “I showed up around five with my legal pad, and... started to write.”
“Hmm. By hand?”
“Yep. I didn’t bring my laptop because I wasn’t planning on a breakthrough.”
Jolene went silent for a few moments, then she said, “Mason, can you go to the library tomorrow?”
Mason chuckled. “I have no doubt that you are now googling the library hours for Pine Valley.”
“Nine to seven,” Jolene said, laughter in her voice. “Oh, wow. The website is very sophisticated.”
“Pine Valley is a resort town, not a backwoods trailer park.”
“Yeah, but there’s a bio of the librarian listed here,” she said. “The director, Olivia Harmon, has a master’s in library science.”
Olivia Harmon. That must be her. He thought of the woman’s dark curls, which she’d pulled back into a clip, and how her dark brown eyes had seemed to burrow right through him. Her blue V-neck sweater and black slacks had been unassuming but had caught his attention nonetheless. Or maybe it was the five rings she wore—none of which were on her ring finger. Or the jangling of her bracelets. He’d assumed that a librarian would wear quieter jewelry.
“She’s pretty,” Jolene said in a slow voice.
There was a picture of Olivia Harmon on the website? Mason put Jolene on speaker and pulled up the library website on his phone. He clicked on the Contact Menu, and yep. There she was. Dark, curly hair, small silver hoop earrings, brown eyes. She had a freckle on the right side of her mouth. He hadn’t noticed that earlier. Even in the picture, she seemed to be smirking at something or ready to tell everyone that the library was closed.
“Mason?” Jolene’s voice cut through his thoughts. “You’ve met Olivia Harmon, haven’t you?”
“Briefly.”
“And... is she perhaps the reason behind this sudden twelve pages?”
“No,” Mason could confidently say. “I met her as I was leaving the library tonight—after the twelve pages.”
The relief was evident in Jolene’s voice when she said, “All right. Just know that this manuscript is your priority, you understand. I don’t want to pull the mother card here.”
“I don’t think even my own mother, were she still alive, would tell me that I couldn’t talk to a pretty librarian.”
Jolene groaned. “I don’t know how many more favors I can call in. Your publisher isn’t exactly happy that your first print run of Cut still hasn’t sold out.”
Mason took her off speaker and put the phone to his ear. “I know, Jolene. Tonight was only about calling you with good news. I know the rest.”
“You’re right,” Jolene said in a brighter tone. “Congratulations, Mason. And let me know if you need anything at all. I’m here for you.”
“Thank you,” Mason said. The phrase might sound cliché for some, but he knew Jolene really would answer his call day or night. She’d even offered to come out to Pine Valley and brainstorm ideas.
Mason had quickly shot down that offer. He didn’t work that way. As a pantser, he could barely shuffle through his own ideas. Someone else’s brain power in the mix would derail his. After he hung up with Jolene he crossed the deck to one of the outdoor chairs. He sat on the cold wrought-iron and opened the browser on his phone. The bio about Olivia Harmon was only two paragraphs, but Mason read every word of it twice.
Not that he was being a creep or anything, and not that he’d ever ask a woman out in a small resort town when he was on a deadline upon which the rest of his career as a writer depended. Jolene was right. Today had been a good day, but he needed to keep his focus.
Besides, dating and being a full-time writer didn’t go hand in hand. When people knew he was a full-time writer, they imagined that he typed out his first one thousand words in the morning with a cup of coffee. Then the next two thousand were written while he lounged by a pool. Then that was followed by some late-afternoon writing at his dining table, after which he went to evening book signings, followed by drinking wine and smoking cigars with a couple of rabid fans at a nearby bar.
No. Being a full-time writer consisted of staring at walls, pacing floors, staring at the laptop screen, answering emails, avoiding phone calls, ignoring texts, then finally typing a sentence. Or maybe two.
Then the cycle would start all over again.
Eight-hour days were more like sixteen-hour days, and still at the end of each day Mason felt like he’d barely accomplished anything.
Maybe he should have been a librarian.