[People, Relaxation]

  “Good morning EG”

  “Good morning Rose”

  “Isn’t this nice EG, talking to each other instead of you secretly reading my mind, now you can give your opinion on things other than books.”

  “I don’t know if I have opinions on anything other than books, Rose.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m a magical bookstore.”

  “Precisely, and you’ve read all of these books right?”

  “Yes, I’ve read them all”

  “So which one do you like the best?”

  “There is no best Rose, if a customer comes in and has a leaky pipe, I sell him the book that best answers his needs. That’s the best book for that customer at that time.”

  “Do you enjoy reading?”

  “I don’t know what enjoyment has to do with anything.”

  “That’s why you don’t have any opinions on anything beyond making recommendations, you’re not enjoying the books you’re given to read. Try imagining that you are Frodo or Gandalf or Aragorn, each time you read it imagine you are a different character. Then tell me which one you liked the best, the mysterious ranger who becomes the High King, the powerful wizard who falls to his death defending his friends only to be resurrected. Or maybe Frodo, the good, weak, common, everyman who winds up saving the world.”

  “I’ve finished and I like each of them equally. If Gandalf doesn’t figure out the ring is the one ring then Frodo would have been captured by the Nine Black Riders. If Aragorn doesn’t meet them in Bree and help them escape and fight for them on Roundtop. Frodo would have been captured by the Black Riders. Frodo is the weak link but he also just keeps moving, no matter how hard. He gets the ring to mount doom, but it is Gollum who actually saves the world, even if that was not his intent.”

  “Alright, who do you like better, Sam or Gollum?”

  “They’re both ringbearers; they both assist Frodo on the final part of the journey.”

  “EG, Sam is there out of love for Frodo, Gollum is there to get the ring back, Gollum betrays Frodo even though Frodo is nice to him. I like Sam better because he does what he does out of love. I dislike Gollum because he wants the quest to fail. If he’d managed to get the ring and slip away to the mountains Sauron would have won the war. Don’t you want the good guys to win? I think ninety percent of readers want the protagonist to ‘win’ so if you want to make recommendations to the reader, it’d be helpful if you felt the same way.”

  “So when I consider a story, I need to think what the reader will want to happen to the main character. If it’s an evil main character, and something bad happens to them, the reader may feel that it’s justified. Like Gollum falling to his death while attempting to steal the ring.”

  “You got it EG, for now consider the reader. But hopefully after you’ve done that for a while you’ll develop thoughts on the character. If you think about what is happening to the character off the page, that requires you to use your imagination, you are writing the bits that the writer left off the page inside your mind.”

  “I’m not sure I have a mind, Rose.”

  “Of course you do, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation, the other day you claimed you’d be bored if you couldn’t read peoples thoughts remember. Well you can’t be bored if you don’t have a mind to start with.”

  “Thank you Rose, you’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  I have a great idea and I leave EG to take care of the store and I head to the Jack in the Green Inn for lunch and to talk to my girlfriend Lu. It’s a beautiful day in Wyldwood, so I really enjoy the walk along the picturesque streets with the tudor style homes. There’s a new barmaid who’s replaced Ruby. I wonder if Ruby misses the slower paced lunch crowd here at the tavern with just one patron at the bar and a few tables of people eating and drinking.

  I hope Lu has time to agree with my idea. I wave to her as I sit at the bar, order a soup and sandwich. While I am waiting I enjoy listening to Lu sing a classic from the Histories of Old, The Walking song. One of the first songs that Lu sang for me, back in the forest on the way to grannies. I love our life and friends but I sometimes miss those quiet intimate moments when it was just Lu and I and not another living soul for miles and miles.

  “What a nice surprise, nothing's wrong is it, Rose?”

  “No nothing, Lu, I just had an idea, are you busy this weekend?”

  “I don’t have to be, did you need me to do something?”

  “Yes, I need you to come away with me, to a surprise location, which I think you’ll really love. If you come by the bookstore at closing I’ll have all our stuff packed and ready.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to it, I have to sing a few more songs. Love you Rose see you around five.”

  The soup is watery and the sandwich is dry, Jack better watch his kitchen staff, if the quality has dropped this much or have I just been spoiled eating at the tea house everyday. Well it doesn’t really matter, we should be having an excellent supper tonight, better to go a little hungry now.

  I jump to Tranquility two and walk to Elijah’s tailor’s shop. It’s a small storefront but Elijah’s a master tailor. Elijah is sewing at a small table near the sales counter. The door hit’s a bell and rings as I enter.

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  “Be right with you… Oh,Rose, it’s so nice to see you. How can I help you?”

  “Hi Elijah, I’d like two sets of dresses, one for me and one for Lu, I hope you still have her measurements on file. Otherwise I can try and take a guess. Something already made, you don’t need to worry about alterations. I’m taking the dresses on an unexpected trip, so I need them this afternoon. I don’t want them to match just two sets that don’t clash.”

  “Got it and I have both of your measurements on file, give me an hour and I’ll have three or four sets ready for you to choose from.”

  “Thanks Elijah, I’m sorry about springing this on you so late, I seem to keep doing that to you. I’ll be back.”

  I walk back to the secluded jump spot and jump to Juliet’s world. I walk into the village and the general store, a store designed to have everything. Mrs Parker is just finishing up with a customer.

  “It’s nice to see you Rose, I never see you anymore now that you moved to that city.”

  “It’s nice to see you too Mrs Parker, I’m sorry it’s been a while, I’m not shopping anywhere else, it’s just your merchandise is such high quality it never seems to wear out. I need quite a lot today, if you don’t mind. I need a trunk that’s large enough for four dresses. I also need two complete sets of underwear for Lu and two for myself, you know our tastes also some costume jewelry suitable for any color dress, two for Lu and two for me, two pair of shoes each that can be worn with any color.”

  “Wow Rose, that is a big order, just give me thirty minutes.”

  “Perfect, thanks Mrs Parker, I just have to jump and make a reservation.”

  The trunk was already heavy without the dresses, so I jumped back to the store, to drop off the extra purchases. Then jumped back to Tranquility Two, dragging the trunk behind me, to the tailors. Elijah was true to his word as always, he had four sets of dresses to choose from. I bought all four, then asked him to pick the two that he thought Lu would like the most, those two I loaded into the trunk.

  “Thank you so much Elijah, when’s the wedding?”

  “Tomorrow Rose, can you believe it, by this time tomorrow I’ll be married.”

  “Congrulations, I’m sure you are going to be very happy. Now how much do I owe you?”

  “Eighteen gold, Rose, I’m sorry it’s so much but that velvet material was very expensive.”

  I gave him fifty gold, as a wedding present and another twenty to cover the cost of the dresses.

  “Rose I can’t accept this, it’s way too much.”

  “Elijah, you work so hard, I never give you enough time and you always manage to give me the perfect dresses anyway. As you said, you’ll have a bride tomorrow night, so put the present towards a house downpayment. You’ll have kids before you know it.”

  “Oh my gods, kids.”

  “Yep they do tend to arrive a little while after marriage. Give my best to your bride.”

  With that I dragged the now heavier trunk to the jump spot and jumped back to the store.

  “Oh so you actually still work here, Rose.”

  “Yes of course I work here Sparky, I was here all morning talking to EG, and we didn’t have a customer. Besides you know how hard I worked on that novel. I jammed so much gratuitous nudity into it for you, I thought you’d still be reading it. How did you like the ending?”

  “I liked it, what I liked even more was seeing you think ahead and announce a sequel right in the end. That way readers who enjoy this book will be on the lookout for the sequel.”

  “From that opening line to that closing scene, did you ever expect that to happen?”

  “Well I didn’t want to mention it Rose, but that line is such a cliche it may alienate some readers, and prevent them from buying the book. They won’t know that you plan to subvert everything. If it were my book and I really wanted to keep that line, I’d make chapter one, chapter two. Then in the new chapter one, have her fall asleep in Fred's car and dream about either the desert scarecrow or Henry sitting before the plate of peas.”

  “Sparky, that’s really a very clever idea, what if I do that as a prologue.”

  “There are readers that won’t buy a book with a prologue, you’d probably be better off just using the cliche line. The reader may get that you used the cliche to create an atmosphere in just seven words, that you are going to subvert anyways. You can’t please all the readers with the same book, in the end, I think the author should just please themselves. The problem with authors doing things in their novel to please what they think the reader wants, is that all the books written that way tend to be the same. The author who just writes what they would like to read winds up being a lot more unique.”

  “All right, next week I’ll write a new Chapter one, then I’ll see how I like it. If I like it, I will give it to you.”

  “Fine I can see you're too busy to write it now, you have a dead body to bury. Who is the dead body is in the trunk, Rose”

  “Very funny Sparky, if you must know, they are dresses for Lu and I, we are going away somewhere for the weekend, where you need to get dressed up for dinner.”

  “Gods, I’d hate that.”

  “I figured as much, I want to write some notes for that first chapter. Will you call me when Lu arrives please.”

  “Tell me again Rose, who’s the master and who’s the apprentice.”

  “Very funny Sparky.”

  I’d just finished writing up my notes when Lu appeared in the doorway. I grabbed her hand, she picked up the trunk in her other hand and we jumped.