Page 104 of The Perfect Rom-Com

This rubble?

This nonsense?

THIS?

Plot holes abound. And I mean ABOUND.

As for characters, what characters?

Just a hodgepodge of names going in and out—a stream of what has to be a hundred names packed into one book. Do you know how many people I keep to my published books? How many characters my readers can be expected to remember? Eight.

There may be a couple randoms in there—the benevolent mailman, the randomly crabby grocer working the night shift—but I learned with my first book two years ago to keep the names and characters to a minimum.

Susanna made sure of it.

She’s taught me a lot, actually, more than I ever realized.

I pop off the top of the ChapStick tube I’ve worked my way through since I started my plan at 2:00 a.m. It’s halfway gone now; I can’t help the incessant biting-on-my-lower-lip habit when I’m wholly focused. I have to pause once in my reading to look up Can someone die from eating ChapStick? and go down that rabbit hole. An hour later I resurface from a dozen articles, two YouTube videos (each fifteen minutes long), and three personal testimonies via social media. Long story short, I bought a spatula in the shape of a dinosaur from an ad I regret already, but I’m going to live with my despicable ChapStick-eating habit.

My plan initially was simple.

I had planned to do a quick read-through of Water Under the Bridge—more like a perusal even. Skim a few pages, make sure it was up to par (as I was so certain it was), then print, bring Jack the book, and offer it up like the sacrifice it is.

But then . . . well, then I read the first line.

And sure enough . . . Florence was right.

Jack was right.

In fact, it was a terrible reality check when I had to admit he was being soft on me all this time. Is that why he didn’t send it? Is that part of it? A lot of uncertainties have left me frustratingly dubious, but one thing at least is for sure.

This book is awful.

I hadn’t realized how much Susanna had taught me in the editorial process of that first book. So much that is common sense now, second nature even, is missing in Water Under the Bridge.

It has potential, yes. Just. Like. Jack. And. Florence. Said.

But without any edits it stops there: potential.

It takes me five days of working nonstop to rewrite.

And I mean a solid don’t-sleep-eat-breathe kind of five days.

Gloria checks on me about once a day. Stuffs something food related under my nose. Refills the jug of water beside me. Adds a potted plant beside my desk for a “happiness factor.” Leaves.

There have been times in the past two years when I’ve been in the zone, but they don’t compare to anything like this.

It’s an emotional roller coaster and a delicate surgical procedure all at once. It’s like being a neurosurgeon working on an airplane during war. My stomach plummets as my eyes reach each new scene, and I gather up the information, assess at a rapid-fire pace, and begin carefully going in with the scalpel. Snipping bits here. Attaching new pieces there. Carefully re-puzzling everything together so that one little changed detail doesn’t domino-effect destroy all the other pieces. All the while feeling a heavy load, a tumultuous fear that this’ll never work out, then breathing a sigh of relief at each scene end. Another page down. Another piece nicely revamped and integrated.

And then one day around noon, I look up.

Ah. The world.

Light is spotlighting a few specks of dust dancing around the window.

A bird—cardinal, sounds like—is singing outside nearby.

A dog barks in the distance.