A Swiftly Changing World
As a five-time novelist there are a couple important things that I have learned about life:
1) Life never tries to imitate art, but it has mastered the surreal.
2) While truth is not necessarily stranger than fiction, it can definitely be harder to believe.
For all intents and purposes, I am known to you as Duncan Goddard. I live in Providence, Rhode Island with my wife Jessica and daughter Emily, just a short distance across town from my older brother, Sam, and his family. Sam's family is significantly larger than mine is and his house is where we usually have our annual Thanksgiving dinner, since his house is also significantly larger than mine. Of the two of us, Sam is the one who really made good on the family name. He successfully climbed up the ladder within the CIA and stopped when he got an assistant director position within the local agency office. He makes oodles of money and lives well, from what I understand. I, on the other hand, struggle through life as a writer and, believe it or not, earn every penny that I get, which isn't much to begin with. We're comfortable and have a nice nest-egg, but we aren't rich by any stretch of the imagination.
Sam and I don't talk much these days, mostly due to the fact that our lives are so different, but when our daughters were younger we saw each other almost all the time. I'd been thinking over the last few years that it was almost criminal to live in the same town as my brother and his family and still not see them as frequently as we used to. I knew that his twin kids, Rebecca and Bill, had just transferred to the University of Massachusetts so that they could finish off their last year of college and that Polly, my daughter's favorite cousin, was going to college for her second year in California. Elizabeth, Sam's wife, has always been the classic house mom-cum-stepford wife, so she always had things going on that were always interesting, whether anyone else found them interesting or not. Beyond that, though, I knew very little about what they were up to these days. Little did I know that events in my life were about to change all of that.
Most of my work is done at home, in a little room that I call my office. The place is my sanctuary, my haven, and there is a standing rule in the house: NO ONE goes into my office, ever, without my permission. There is an intercom system setup just outside my office's double-doors so that my wife or daughter can call on me when necessary, but the office itself is considered forbidden territory. As far as I know, that rule has been largely respected. I've never found anything out of place or unreasonably disturbed, so I never really bothered with locking it. If we had another child in the house, I might have installed a lock, but since we have only Emily, locks seem like a pointless investment.
Speaking of Emily, I should probably fill in some details about her. My daughter is both the brightest and most mischievous girl I've ever known. I've heard that I gave Mom and Dad a lot of trouble back when I was a kid, but Emily simply takes the cake. She's not necessarily rebellious, but she is most definitely headstrong. It took me MONTHS to get it through her head that my office was off limits when she first became aware of its existence as a child. Eventually, however, she learned to follow that rule and never broke it. Other rules, however, were broken all the time. Not the major rules, mind you, just the ones that would annoy me and my wife to no end- sneaking out of bed at night for snacks, making plans to spend the night over at a friend's house and THEN telling us about it, dating boys she knew damn well would never win my approval and other such things. More than being precocious, though, Emily is beautiful. And I don't say that lightly- she's a knock-out young lady, definitely a gorgeous man-eater who has had the fortune of looking like a much shorter version of her equally beautiful mother. Long brunette hair; large, supple, firm breasts; a nice, small, round ass; piercing steel-blue eyes; full, luscious lips; and legs that look strong and muscular on her 4'8" frame. Technically, she qualifies as a midget, which she likes to joke about sometimes, but everything on her tiny body is in perfect proportion. She looks like a miniature version of the hottest brunette porn star you could think of. Guys follow her around like sick puppy dogs and she has her pick of the litter. Actually, it was her natural beauty that led to her being a tom-boy for most of her childhood. Consequently, she always had boys hanging around her, either as friends or suitors, but the only girls who could stand to be around her were the ones who either looked as good as her or simply didn't give a shit about how much attention she got from boys in general.
I, however, most definitely gave a shit about how much attention she got from boys and did everything I could to protect her. I'm not foolish enough to believe that Emily was still a virgin and purely innocent by the time she got to her Senior year of high school, but parents often like to live in ignorance of such facts. Protecting my daughter, while ultimately pointless, was something that I could do thanks, in large part, to my career as a writer. On the surface, sitting in front of the computer and writing stories might seem somewhat boring, but the fatherhood angle keeps it all pretty interesting. My wife, Jessica, has a full-time job as a nurse while I stay at the house and write my books and raise Emily, who has just reached the graceful and frightening age of eighteen. I say graceful because my daughter has turned into a stunning beauty and I say frightening because, well, my daughter has turned into a stunning beauty. Boys her age are more insistent than ever before and it's all I can do to keep up with her. She's always keeping me on my toes, whether it's going out and dancing on a school night or disappearing for entire weekends under the pretense of staying at a friend's house. But, to be fair, she's as much a joy to my life as she is a burden- she has those incredible moments where all the mischief disappears and she's my adorable little girl. So I bear the burden of fatherhood gladly while my wife pays the regular the bills, having done her bit for parenthood during Emily's formative years.
Being a writer provides me with a lot of alone-time. When I'm not writing, I'm usually thinking about a story or looking for inspiration. Inspiration, I have learned through hard experience, can come from all kinds of sources. This being the case, I don't limit myself and expose my creative mind to all kinds of stimulation. TV, movies, plays, shopping malls, my daughter's conversations with her friends... nothing is taboo for me when it comes to the never-ending search for an inspiring idea. And I get plenty of them, some good and some not so good, but the well is never dry if I push myself hard enough and slog through enough crap. Lord only knows that I've gone through several VCR's and DVD players over the years doing exactly that. Translating some of that inspiration into a viable story, on the other hand, is where the work of a writer really comes in- and that's where the dedication to my craft must be applied. I actually look forward to working every day and can't wait to see what I produce by the day's end. I'll be the first to admit that 70% of what I end up writing is crap, but that golden 30% makes it all worthwhile- both literally and figuratively.
I'm not the most popular writer out there, but I've got a modest fan-base, which keeps me honest and my family well provided-for. I am what many people in the pulp industry would call a second-tier author. I've sold a rather healthy number of books but still haven't made it to the New York Best-seller's list. My book advances are just big enough to pay the bills for a few years while I spend that time working on another book, in order to keep the mill running. Residuals and royalties help some, but not as much as you might guess. It's the advances, really, that matter most to us second-tier authors. Those and the odd jobs that all authors must do: signings, readings, conferences, conventions and radio or TV interviews (for those rare and lucky few who get the attention of the mass media, that is).
So when my agent calls me once every few months to tell me that she's booked me on a short signing tour, I typically don't make much of a fuss about it. Truth be told, some of those jaunts can be a real blast- and the fans are almost always interesting in one way or another. The only real downside, though, is that I oftentimes have to leave Emily, basically, home alone since her mother works all the time. Emily, of course, loves to get every opportunity to stay home while both her parents are working- what teenage girl wouldn't? And, to be fair, it isn't like we're REALLY leaving her alone for any extended period of time- my wife still comes home after work, even though she comes home rather late at night.
But, as they say, shit happens, right? Indeed it does. Jessica works at the local hospital. Having worked there for a few years now, her routine has gotten to be fairly, well, routine. It's very rare that she has to deviate from her normal schedule and the hospital has always given her plenty of notice when things had to change. It's fortunate that our particular hospital doesn't suffer from the shortage of nurses that a lot of other hospitals do, otherwise Jessica would probably work a lot harder and have longer hours. In the ten years that she's worked there, not once has she had to go out of town for her job- until now. Apparently there was some sort of re-certification program at the hospital which required Jessica to go to Chicago for a few weeks and brush up on her ER skills. The timing was unfortunate because I had also just been told by my agent that I was booked for a week-long jag in New York to promote my newest book.
This left Emily completely alone to her own devices for a full week. Neither Jessica nor I really liked this development, but neither of us could back out of these obligations to our professions. I had signed a contract to do a certain number of public appearances and Jessica's job as a nurse was on the line if she didn't get re-certified. We didn't really have a choice in the matter, which doubtlessly made our daughter even happier. This was her moment to do whatever she wanted while we were away and she damn well knew it.
