Voices in the Wardrobe by Marlys Millhiser Read Free Book Online Page A

weight but she had been his agent when he hit, and that was a bond like no other.
    â€œI am talking to myself.”
    â€œI don’t understand how anyone so transparent can be such a good agent.” Keegan Monroe had never been impressive looking, his hair and mustache grew thinner while his body thickened. But his bolo ties, turquoise jewelry, and cowboy boots were back in style, what with the current leadership in Washington. “Which reminds me, since this could be as close to getting you all to myself as I’ll have this week, I’m looking for an editor to edit a novel manuscript. The best there is. Where do I go?”
    Charlie nearly choked on her lemon sole. “You finished a novel?”
    â€œWell no, but I have a treatment—”
    â€œProposal.”
    â€œRight. And I want to publish with an e-publisher, print on demand. But I’ve heard there’s no critical, talented editing so they get little review space and if they do reviewers feel free to trash them.”
    â€œReviewers are free to trash any book, Keegan.”
    â€œWith all the downsizing there must be some good editors willing to freelance. I can pay. And this way I would have complete control of the storyline.”
    â€œBookstores don’t order books they know they can’t return. Why not write a book about screenwriting? Your name could get you a New York publisher, your credits could convince the chains to buy the book.”
    â€œThat’s crass commercialism and you know it.”
    â€œKeegan, commercialism doesn’t get any crasser than Hollywood.”
    â€œI like to think there are loftier instincts in the old-line prestigious houses in New York publishing.”
    â€œOnce you had an editor in New York, the next book you send her could be your novel. You’d have a foot in the door.” If you ever finished it. Charlie’d had several houses interested in him and one even offered an advance. He never completed the book. Even in Folsom Prison he couldn’t finish a novel. But he did write a screenplay there that earned him an invitation to Cannes and he did gain a lot of weight when he got out, both events inspired by prison food. “And self-publishing a book, which is what original I-books are, is likely to get you slammed by snooty reviewers. Self-published books have no promotion budget.” Most other published books in this corporate world didn’t either, truth be known.
    â€œI’ll make it a mystery and go to those conventions around the country to promote it.”
    â€œAnd there you will meet thousands of I-published writers instead of book-buying fans—all trying to do what you are doing.” But she made a mental note to hunt up a poor unemployed editor of merit to work with him.
    Charlie opted out of the party continuation back at the hotel and went up to her room to face the music. She had messages on her cell and the phone light blinked on her room phone. She slipped into her night shirt (a man’s V-neck undershirt) and the hotel terrycloth robe, not as luxurious as the one at the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol, and washed her face. Munching a chocolate mint the maid left on her pillow, she took the cell out to the deck that overlooked a row of sailboats dipping and nodding at their moorings below and moonlight showering down from above. The sound of the bay lapping at the marina’s docks reminded her of the eddy pool of cucumber, seaweed, and murder fame.
    It felt so good being alone and on her own, having her life back. But she listened to Luella Ridgeway’s message. “Charlie, Maggie’s relatively stable but call me when you can. I snuck my cellular into the room. This is a weird place and I live with weird every day, but—”
    Libby Abigail Greene—“Mom, do you know how to make a cat, who smeared the kitchen with poop and Science Diet, take a pill?”
    Richard Morse of Congdon and Morse, Inc. who