@violettajane
Christian craddled the manuscript under his right arm, the keys to his car dangling from his finger. He shouldn’t feel nervous about this. He’d met with Ms. Reeves before. She’s gone through the manuscript and offered her critiques. By all accounts, this meeting -- to discuss final edits before sending it off to the publisher’s -- should be easy, but for some reason, he felt as if he’d never done anything more difficult. This book was nearly 300 pages -- 298 to be exact -- of his blood, sweat, and tears and the idea of it being turned away set a sort of panic churning in his gut.
This was different than submitting a story, even one he’d chased for years. This was raw and more personal. It had taken every bit of discipline in him not to revert to the third person pronoun while he’d been writing; that would’ve made things easier -- pretending as if he could detach from the events that the memoir described. He’d quickly learned, though, that there was no detaching from it. All he could do was weather through the storm of memories.
“Good day, Ms. Reeves,” Christian greeted. He’d offered a short prayer -- his first in years, if he was being honest -- before letting himself into her office. “I’ve brought you the finalized copy as requested. Or as final as I can offer. I’ve never really been a believer in the final draft.”