Beginning of Book 3

Hi, folks,

Below is the very beginning of my third Skeeter Hughes Mystery, yet to be titled. I'm taking a huge risk throwing it out there for you all to see this early draft, but I figure all of publishing is risk-taking, ya know? And, well, the mantra of what we do is "show, don't tell" so I figure this is about as telling as I can get.

All opinions gratefully accepted. 

By Judith Yates Borger

Rachel Rand James left happy hour a little early and headed home on the light rail. She was up for reelection and didn’t need headlines that she’d been arrested for drinking and driving. Besides, she needed to be seen on public transportation, which had been one of her campaign issues.

She’d been downtown with her best friend, Skeeter Hughes, and their buddy Buzzy Brewster. Skeeter, Rachel and Buzzy had started working at the newspaper within a month of each other, and soon began going out drinking after deadline. Over several pitchers of beer they’d argue about everything, politics, body image and men. Skeeter always took positions on the left and Rachel on the right. Buzzy usually landed somewhere in the middle, always the arbiter. By last call they were still best friends even if neither had convinced the others of anything. Now, Skeeter was a newspaper reporter,  Buzzy was a copy editor and Rachel,who had always had higher ambitions, was mayor of Minneapolis. 

The mayor liked to document how taxpayer money was spent. She pulled out her iPhone and snapped a couple pictures of the scene on the train: Office workers heading home. Moms shushing babies. Young folks dressed in the black-pants-and-white-shirts uniform of the evening shift at the hotels. Travelers on their way to the airport, tugging wheeled suit cases. The Hiawatha Light Rail, which the mayor had championed, was packed. Maybe one of the shots would be good enough to use in her new campaign literature, she thought. 

As the train pulled into the Cedar Riverside stop Rachel glanced at the platform as people disembarked. A guy in a gold and marroon  University of Minnesota hoody and jeans, a couple of giggling Somali girls covered head to toe  in jeweled-colored hajibs, an older white man in a blazer and tie talking to a young Somali man in black pants and a tan zipped jacket. A picture of diversity, she thought, and  snapped another shot. Then she sent an email to Skeeter and Buzzy.

“Love ya,” she wrote in the subject line, and, “Had a great time tonight” in the body of the email. 

They were her last words. 

Chapter 1

Rachel had called it quits on her third beer and headed home. I was nursing my second and swapping newspaper gossip with Buzzy, my all-time favorite copy editor who, like me, had the night off. We were talking about ordering a pizza when our cell phones sounded simultaneously.

“Uh Oh,” Buzzy said. “This can’t  be good.”

The messages went to all staff: “Light rail bombed. Everyone to newsroom.”

“I’m heading in,” Buzzy said. 

“I’m not,” I said. “If I go to the newsroom they’re just going to send me right out. I’m closer to the tracks now anyway.”

We had been slogging down the beers at the Loon, a zillion-year-old watering hole kitty corner from the First Avenue light rail stop in downtown Minneapolis. Buzzy stood, gave me a quick nod, threw money on the table and left. I did the same.

 I ran to my little red Honda Civic del Sol, which I had parked at a meter, and roared away until I was within a half mile of the Hiawatha Light Rail line. Road construction had traffic backed up, so I ditched my car in a no-parking zone. I grabbed my personal iPhone, the newspaper’s piece-of-crap issued cell phone and my notebook and took off running. I ran up a pile of dirt then did a face plant running down the other side. Damn, I wish I were in better shape, I thought as I wiped grit from my eyes, nose and mouth.  Nearby construction workers were so busy watching the smoke billowing to the sky that no one noticed as I pulled myself up, brushed off, and kept running. 

The smell of the disaster hung in the air. Acrid. Electrical. Like a hair dryer that’s been working too hard. Then the overpowering stench of burning oil. Fire engines wailed as flames shot to the sky. I figured it would be minutes before the police set up a perimeter impervious to everyone, especially reporters. I had to get as close a possible to see what was going on before the boundary went up. 

Half a dozen pickup trucks were parked on a residential street  a block away and well within sight of the disaster scene. They probably belong to the construction workers, I thought. Figuring no one would notice me, I climbed into the bed of the black, mud-spattered Ford Ranger and kneeled on top of a blue tarp that covered something hard and lumpy. 

The heat from the explosion hit me like an ocean wave. Even though smoke obscured the scene I could see that both cars on the light rail had been destroyed. I needed to get word to the newsroom.

Barely catching my breath, I whipped out my iPhone and hit the speed dial for what the newsroom calls “the Bat Phone,” a dedicated line that the editors monitor twenty-four/seven. Circuits must have been overloaded because l kept getting a busy signal. Same with the piece-of-crap phone. I tried to text. That didn’t work either. I sent an email to content@Citizen.com, a general address monitored by many editors. But emails can be slow. That left Twitter. 

The tweet needed to be worded carefully. I didn’t want to tip off the TV stations. I knew they monitored Twitter to keep tabs on the competition because we did the same to keep an eye on them.

“I’m here. Talk to Buzzy.” I tweeted directly to my editor, knowing Buzzy would tell her I had taken off toward the train.

By now the distance between me and the burning train was swarming with cops and firefighters. Sirens wailed. A Hennepin County sherriff’s helicopter whoop, whoop, whooped overhead. But I didn’t see any other media. 

“Ours alone, I think,” I tweeted.

The rule on a breaking story like this is you don’t take the time to write full paragraphs. It’s better to shoot just one sentence back to the newsroom as soon as you have a detail. An editor will pull it all together, hopefully taking out all the typos. Keep it comin’, they say. So I did.

“Counting 20 trucks from all firehouses. Sheriff chopper overhead. City, county cops everywhere.”

“Two cars on train fully engulfed. Smells like hair burning.”

“Pop, pop, pop. Don’t know what. Electrical something?”

“Ads on train for Citizen and Metro Transit bubbled, melted on sides of cars.”

I hope someone in the newsroom, our newsroom, is getting all this, I thought, and kept texting.

“Cops set up command center. ”

“Hear no cries for help from train; only rush of fire.”

“Windows pop out on train.”

“More sirens. Maybe 6 ambulances pulling up.”

“They’re not hurrying. Doubt anyone survived.”

Just then one of the half dozen cops at the command center turned in my direction so I ducked under the tarp in the truck bed, finding myself nose-to-nose with a giant wrench. When I poked my head up seconds later I found myself in the steady gaze of Minneapolis Sgt. Victoria Olson, her feet planted like the roots of an oak, her face as impassive as bark. She gave me a slight nod, then said something to one of the other cops at the command center. 

“Busted by Sgt. V. Olson.”

Someone was going to roust me, and soon, I figured, so I had to send back as much detail as possible because, as far as I could tell, I was the only representative from the public on the scene. 

“Smoke clearing a bit. Most damage in 2^nd car. Front of train seems only scorched.”

“Grass around train burned for about 30 feet.”

“Looks like cops evacuating nearby houses. ”

Finally I saw that my tweets were getting through.

“U R doing good. Keep it comin,” came a reply.

I couldn’t tell who sent it but it didn’t matter. Someone in the newsroom was receiving. Thank God.

Another explosion. I ducked under the tarp again, this time to protect myself. Good thing, too, because I felt the ping, ping, ping of shards of glass and metal raining down on me. Unfortunately, I moved so fast that I banged my noggin on a pile of hammers. As I rubbed my forehead someone snapped the tarp away.

“What exactly are you doing, Ms. Hughes?” said the white guy with the close-cropped haircut and the FBI badge hanging around his neck. 

I'd Love to Visit Your Book Club

By Judith Yates Borger, who's offering free ebook to any book club that sets up a Skype or FaceTime visit.

A writer friend refuses to visit book clubs because, she says, they tend to drink too much wine and grill her about why her character has premarital sex. Well, actually, it only happened once but it put her off book clubs forever.

I, on the other hand, love to visit with book clubs. In my little intro I tell them that I have very thick skin after working on newspapers where a good day was when only two people called me up swearing. I invite their criticism as well as their praise. They have never failed to heap on both, and I have learned from each comment. In fact, I made some changes in my second book, Whose Hand? because of comments about my first book, Where's Billie?

I've also learned there are a few key questions book club members ask every time:

Q: What is your writing routine?
A: I'm highly productive between 10 and 10:15 in the morning. The rest is slogging through mud.

Q: Was your car really blown up as portrayed in Where's Billie?
A: Yes, I wouldn't let that research go to waste.

Q: Are any members of your family characters in the book?
A: Note to my children: NO.

Q: Are any of your characters real people?
A: Lots of characters are an amalgamation of people I know or have met.

Q: How long did it take you to write the book(s)?
A: Start to publishing for Where's Billie? took three agents and seven years. For Whose Hand? it was about two years. I'm getting speedier.

Q: Do you get paid more with ebooks or paper books?
A: This is a classic Minnesotan question. What they really want to know is am I getting rich but they're too nice to ask directly. The answer is I get 70 percent royalty on ebooks, because I self publish them. I get five percent on paper books — about 80 cents for a $16.95 traditionally published book.  A reasonable follow up question here would be: Why in God's name do you work with a traditional publisher? But no one ever asks it.

Q: What is the husband in Where's Billie? doing? Fooling around? Out on assignment? Going through chemo? Then they often debate that point for up to 45 minutes.
A: Buy Whose Hand? and find out.

Three days ago I was asked: What will you be in five years?
A: Eligible for Medicare.

All of this is great, but my problem is I can't drive/fly/bus/take Amtrak many miles to visit book clubs. However, I'd really like to chat with readers from outside the Twin Cities. So ....

I'm offering  free ebooks of either Where's Billie? or Whose Hand?—your choice—to any book club willing to set up a time for me to visit  via Skype or FaceTime. Let's face it folks, the technology is there to reach out and touch someone face-to-face. Let's use it.

Email me at Judy@JudithYatesBorger.com to set up a date/time. I promise I'll be there. Go to my website, www.JudithYatesBorger.com, for descriptions of both books.

After My Car Was Firebombed While I Covered a Riot...

by JudithYates Borger

It was a hot August night in 2002 when I was a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press dispatched to Minneapolis because it looked like a riot was erupting. Police had tried to issue a warrant on a drug house when someone unleashed a pit bull on the officers. They shot at the dog, the bullet ricocheted off the sidewalk and hit a youngster in the arm. Word went out in the neighborhood that cops had shot a kid.


I normally covered the Minneapolis mayor's office and city council. I'd never worked a police beat in my life and didn't have a clue how to handle a simple burglary, let alone an explosive situation. Nonetheless, the paper wanted all west-of-the-Mississippi reporters on the scene. I got lost on the way, and by the time I arrived, the cops had pulled out, leaving a TV van with a damaged antenna dangling like a broken arm, some torn down yellow police tape and a lot of broken glass. People stood around in groups talking in low murmurs.


I pulled my red Honda Civic del Sol, a gem of a two-seater convertible, into the parking of a convenience store, which was lit up like a surgical suite. Wearing shorts, a T-shirt and my 15-year-old Birkenstock sandals, I got out of my car, locking my purse in the trunk. Several people standing around eyed me, the only white person in sight, with curiosity. I looked like a lost soccer mom, except for my reporter's notebook, pen and cell phone.


I seldom worked nights and my first thought was to wonder what time was deadline. Clearly I wasn't going to have time to write a story, so I called the newsroom and started to dictate what I saw. I was in reporter mode and it didn't occur to me to be frightened.

I saw someone run away from a car and moments later a fire kindled inside. The crowd saw it too, and began to gather around while the fire grew. Soon the car was fully engulfed and I was afraid the branches of a huge maple tree the tree would catch fire, and then the house behind it. People watched like it was the Fourth of July as the car exploded. Fortunately, the fire burned out without touching the tree.
 


As I stood in the parking lot the manager of the convenience store walked up to me and asked, "Who are you?" Then he told me he had dragged a man who had been beaten into the store. Mohamed Somebody, the manager, had called 911 a couple of times to say the man needed medical attention, but no one was coming.


We were standing under the bright lights of the parking lot when we heard gunshots. Bang, bang, bang. It sounded like they were feet away. That’s when I realized I was in danger. I looked at Mohamed, he looked at me, and we both hustled into the store, careful to stand away from the windows. I envisioned spending the night surrounded by Blue Bunny Ice Cream.

Inside the store, I met , a StarTribune reporter, a competitor who had taken a brick in the back of his head. He was incoherent, asking me over and over again, "Who are you?" He asked where he was, and how he had gotten there. I answered his questions and then he'd start them all over again.

After what seemed like a very long time, three or four police cars pulled up in front of the store, blue and red lights flashing. Officers with shotguns and a big dog poured out like the cavalry coming to the rescue. One came to the door of convenience store, talked to the manager, looked at incoherent reporter, then asked me, "Who are you?" I was beginning to get used to the question.



She escorted the two of us to the back seat of the patrol car and shut the door. I looked out the window and saw my car parked next to the convenience store. I'd already seen one car firebombed that night and knew mine was next. When I knocked on the window to get the officer's attention — you can't get out of the back seat of a patrol car — she told me to forget about my car for the night.

"Get it in the morning," she said. I'll just bet, I thought.

The next morning, I got another reporter to drive me to the lot outside the convenience store to pick up my car. When I got there, the bricks on the side of the store were scorched, and a man with one tooth was outside with a broom and dustpan. I learned later that the fire department had already hauled away the husk of my car, including the charred remains of my purse, which had held $200 cash, a spare cell phone and all my credit cards.

"That was my car," I said to the man who was sweeping up the last bits of metal.

He reached into the pile, pulled out the "H" hood ornament, wiped it off on his pants and offered it to me.

"I'm sorry," he said.



KnightRidder, which then owned the Pioneer Press, refused to replace my car, saying it paid reporters 36.5 cents a mile to cover gas and my insurance. Besides, I was told, if it paid for my car it would have to pay for every car that got firebombed. I wonder where else that happens. Miami?

The Pioneer Press paid for my deductible on my car and homeowners insurance – for the cash, cell phone and other stuff toasted in my purse – and an airline ticket to Chicago, where I bought another cute little convertible identical to the one that was torched. Because the cause on the claim on my homeowners’ insurance was fire, I got a letter from our company telling me to be sure to check my home’s furnace.

Ten months later I resigned the paper, not because my car was firebombed, but because it was clear management did not have my back.

Like the fiction I write these days, this story has a satisfying conclusion. My protagonist is … wait for it … a newspaper reporter whose car is firebombed. Superb detail in that passage, if I do say so myself. She has lots of adventures while juggling career, family and her passions for both. I love making this stuff up.

Where’s Billie? and Whose Hand?, both Skeeter Hughes Mysteries, are doing very well in trade paperback and ebooks, available at all bookstores, Kindle and Nook. I’m working on the third mystery right now, title to be determined.

I’m deliriously happy and feeling safe in my work. Life is good.

Email, Blogs, Skype and Face-Time: We authors must talk among ourselves.

By Judith Yates Borger
I had my two best e-selling months ever in July and August. I suspect that was because there was a lot of non-epublicity, mostly TV and newspaper, about the launch of my second book in paper, Whose Hand? A Skeeter Hughes Mystery. In another post I'll talk about how I guess -- no one knows for sure -- that paper publicity can work for ebooks.

But for now let's discuss the Kriswrites blogger, who says paper authors who have been fairly successful in the last five to ten years did not do well at all in August. Kris writes a lengthy piece to explain that some authors are thinking hard about ending their writing careers because of the terrible state of paper publishing. Here's an excerpt:

"The editor must do her publisher’s bidding or lose her job. And eventually that wears the editor down. Either she doesn’t care any more or she gets angry at the writers (and their agents) who are the only people she can safely get angry at and still have a job.

But the editor can talk to her colleagues and realize that they’re going through the same tough times. The agents see this happening to client after client and know it has nothing to do with the agenting, so it must be the writers themselves.

But the writers—oh, the writers—they work alone. And often they have no one to talk to. Many writers don’t tell their writing colleagues because these writers don’t want to be perceived as failures. When the writers tell their fans that the next book in a series won’t appear, the fans blame the writer."

It's a fascinating piece and I recommend it. Kris makes two key points: Writers need to talk to each other, honestly, even if they work alone in coffee shops, the library or at home. Being alone doesn't have to be ALONE. There are emails, blogs even Skype and face-time. Writers just have to take advantage of the technology.

But not just in communicating among themselves. Epublishing, Kris points out, may be wrecking paper sales, but boy is it good for authors who embrace it.

Like I said, I had a great July and August.

Indie Authors' Co-op for Print books?

By Judith Yates Borger

A couple weeks ago I met with a few other mystery authors who were fed up with the gauntlet they had to run to get a book published in paper traditionally. About a year ago two of them had waived their middle fingers at the big guys and set up their own company. They contracted with the very same distributors who had peddled their traditionally published previous  books to the likes of Barnes & Noble, and, sadly, now defunct Borders. They got a deal with the same folks who had printed their previous books. They got reviews in places such as Booklist. They contracted with a cover designer and an editor. Basically, they did everything their paper publisher had done on their previous books and left them with a paltry royalty.

Now, they get monthly sales reports instead of the semi-annual-who-knows-if-they're-true numbers they had previously received from their publishers. They sell their mysteries for $15 and earn $5.50 per book in royalties. There is upfront financial investment, instead of an advance to earn back, but they start making some reasonable money after they've sold 1,000 books.

"I'm working with the editor, the cover designer, setting up my own promotion," said one of the authors. "But I was doing all that before when I had a 'publisher.' "

His motivation was not to make a lot of money -- although that would be just fine. No, what he likes most about the arrangement is that he has control over his work. Not to worry about a publisher who has final say on the cover or the title of book, or who doesn't have the courage to go into a second printing.

Of course, there is risk involved. What if the distributor goes belly-up? Or the printer gets struck by lightning?  Although the reports just funnel through the lead member authors are responsible for their own bills. Still, the other authors have to write well enough to not bring ill will on the others. No one wants guilt by association.

I've been looking around to see if any other authors are doing the same. I found a news item about one group near Seattle that has something similar going, but I haven't seen anything else.

These authors want me to join their authors' coop. What do you think? I've had two books published in paper by a traditional author, an okay-but-not-great experience. I'm working on my third book now. Should I go the coop route? Join up with these guys, whose work I like?

What I learned about print reviews

 By Judith Yates Borger, who never really lost faith in the power of newspapers

Because my emphasis is on epublishing, I hadn't paid a lot of attention to print reviews. That changed this week when my local newspaper, the StarTribune ran a Sunday review of my next book, Whose Hand? A Skeeter Hughes Mystery.

The reviewer, Steve Weinberg, a Columbus, Ohio journalist, said that Whose Hand? is "filled with places and events recognizable to Twin Cities residents."  He added that it's written by "a skilled stylist, and the plot unfolds without flaws of illogic. Far too many mysteries are bedeviled by illogical plot developments." Weinberg, who collects books about journalists, paired his review of Whose Hand? with a review of Killing Kate, by Julie Kramer, whose protagonist is also a reporter. It's unusual, he said, to have two books about two different female journalists released at the same time in the same city. He hailed both books as "first rate."

Whose Hand? is only available right now through Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble nook. It's in pre-order and will be published in paper in mid-August.  But apparently the review moved people who own ereaders to act. By Sunday late afternoon, Whose Hand?'s ranking on Amazon had zoomed up 175,000. My first book, Where's Billie? had gone up 200,000 ranks.  Both books were among the top 9,000 best sellers among Kindle's 750,000 ebooks. 

What's significant here is not so much the ranking but the huge swing in ranking caused by just one review. In a newspaper, no less.

By contrast, Publishers Weekly called Whose Hand?  a "diverting regional mystery with appeal to readers beyond the Twin Cities." I could not see any significant change in my Kindle sales after the Publisher's Weekly review.

I think there are two lessons here. It doesn't take a lot of sales to move an ebook way up the sales list. But more important, we have to pay attention to good, old newspaper coverage. It matters. 

Have you had a similar experience?  Tell us about it.

When reseach becomes more than research

One of the bonuses of writing for a living is a flexible schedule. We writers can be working at midnight and swim or bike at 3 o'clock if we're so inclined. It's a great life, especially if it pays in dollars.

But even if the income is, shall we say, unpredictable, the writing life also can pay in other ways: the freedom to be part of the neighborhood. A couple years ago I volunteered to read to kids waiting to see their doctor at HCMC (Hennepin County Medical Center) in downtown Minneapolis. On Thursday mornings I walked about 10 minutes, past the Mall of America Metrodome, to the center, grabbed a bag of books, and sat in the lobby reading to kids, or their siblings. Most of the kids loved hearing about Clifford's latest escapades, or searching for Waldo. I suspect their parents liked the respite. Then, as kids left their appointment they were allowed to choose a book to take home. The idea was to encourage literacy, and in a tiny way, I think it worked. But last spring I dropped the gig because it didn't give me a chance to get to know any of the kids. It felt like shift work. Plus, I was worried I'd get caught up in the latest measles epidemic.

Then, one day, I walked into the Somali Resource Center in Riverside Plaza (known to the University of Minnesota students who live nearby as Crack Towers)  and volunteered  as an aide to an English as a second language class one morning a week. It has turned into exactly the activity I wanted. I get to see the same people every week. Habiba. Dube. Hussein. Hua. I work with them in small groups as they struggle to learn English, which I've come to realize makes no sense. Most of the students are well over 60, and many never learned to read in Somali. Yet they keep working. I take two or three aside and help them read sentences such as "The shower is leaking. Call the manager."

I look forward to each Wednesday morning class for the chance to be with people, for the stimulation, for the change of scenery from my computer.   I'm also learning about customs, mannerisms, habits of Somali women, a community where I plan to set my next book in the Skeeter Hughes mystery series.

Have you ever turned a work or volunteer opportunity into a mystery?

We didn't have a contract

For months I had been telling my paper publisher for my second mystery, Whose Hand? A Skeeter Hughes Mystery, that we did not have a contract. He replied repeatedly that we would work under the same terms we had used for my first mystery, Where's Billie?,  that he had published. I pushed on.

After I had written, revised, revised and revised, I hired an editor to work on Whose Hand? I called my publisher and left messages that I was working on the book, but WE DIDN'T HAVE A CONTRACT. He did not return my calls.

Last January, after I was happy with Whose Hand? I put it on Kindle and Nook. Sales were pretty good, and boosted  interest in the first book as well.  My publisher decided to delay release of Whose Hand? from spring to fall 2011. Given that WE DIDN'T HAVE A CONTRACT, and it was doing ok in epub, I went along, even though that meant the second book would be released two years after the first, which is too long.

Whose Hand? is set to release in August. Last week I told my publisher that WE DIDN'T HAVE A CONTRACT. "That's not good," he said.

He invited me to his office, and mentioned nonchalantly as the contract printed out, that it had changed a bit. "I'm going to be doing the Kindle and Nook publishing now," he said.

"No," I said, fully prepared to walk out of his office without a contract for paper.

Our first contract specifically said that I retained electronic rights to the work. I wasn't about to let go of those rights for the second book.

"What percentage would you give me?" I asked, curious only to hear what he'd say. "I get 70 percent from Kindle and 70 percent from Nook."

He was dumbfounded. He had planned to send the file of my work to another vendor, who would put it up on Kindle and Nook, then pay him 50 cents for each copy sold. I get $2.10 per book now, I told him. Shock and awe.

"How do you get it in the Kindle?" he asked.

"I read the directions," I replied.

"Maybe I should have you put all my other books on Kindle," he said.

In the end, we signed a contract identical to my first with him, including a sentence that says I retain all electronic rights. 

My paper publisher's family is now in it's third generation in the business. He's a savvy man, in the print world. But like many publishers he's caught in a very steep learning curve of the rapidly changing world.

So what's the lesson in this tale? We're all learning. But we indie authors have to stay with every bend in the road, or we're going to get run over. And never, never, never sell your electronic rights for less than a bizzilion dollars.

Have you had an experience like this?

My intern, Sven

My intern, Sven, who reminds me of Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, only cuter, wanted the morning off. He had to finish his application for the Rhodes Scholarship. I was inclined to give it to him, especially since he has come to work every morning for past week at six to make sure the coffee was fresh and scones just out of the oven for me when I came in to work.

I'd hired him at the end of his spring semester at MIT because he could type. He auditioned for the job by giving me a foot massage. How could I not hire someone so dexterous?

He's worked out well so far, even if he's only here mornings. He's written checks to the cottage industry I employ- typesetters, editors, cover designers - and balanced my checkbook. He's already called a dozen television and radio shows and has me booked to talk about Whose Hand? A Skeeter Hughes Mystery when it publishes in mid-August. He even lined up a caterer to make tiny crepes stuffed with goat cheese and asparagus tips for the launch party Aug. 24, 7 p.m. at Once Upon A Crime Mystery Bookstore in Minneapolis. He ordered a case of Chardonnay.

"Tell me again why you want tomorrow off," I said.

"I hate to leave you in a lurch but if I don't get my application in right away I may have to wait another year and that's just too much," he said.

"What's your sport?"

"Discus throwing."

"You certainly have the muscles for it," I said. "Well, ok, if you must you can go, but I want you back in 24 hours, you understand?"

"I wouldn't leave you longer than that. Who knows could happen?"

What will I do when he gets the Rhodes? He'll be gone for a whole year. I guess I'll just have to hire his identical twin, Ben.


So... fellow writers. What's your fantasy?