Wanna Read my [unpublished] Novel?

 Don’t be so quick to volunteer, though.  Read on…

I’ve just completed my second novel.  You may recall that I bragged about writing one last spring.  I was very excited and had high hopes, but after 128 rejections…well, I tossed in the towel.  Sort of.

I still plan to get back to that one, but rather than make fixes, I wrote another story, taking some of the feedback I got from the first book to make the second one better.  I hope.

That’s where you come in.  I received a couple of suggestions to have others read the book first before submitting it to agents, and it seemed like a good idea.  So, if you’d like to read it, I’ll send you a copy (Word or pdf file only - sorry, I tried to convert to .epub but I’m a Luddite).

But not so fast.

The complete synopsis is at the bottom of this post, and I do mean complete.  What looks like the last three paragraphs (the end of the book) is there, but in WHITE, so you can’t find out how it ends unless you really, really want to (copy it and change the font color).

I am hoping that a few of you will volunteer to read it and then give me some feedback.  Don’t sweat the grammar – Mona has yet to touch this (and she’s the Grammar Nazi of the family).  She’ll also give me some feedback, but I already know what she’ll tell me (the same thing she always does, and she’s right, but ironically, it’s the same problem she and other authors have).  Why is it we can see other’s faults but not our own?

Well, that’s why you’re not supposed to edit your own stuff.

One more thing – the title.  I started out with SPEECHLESS but there’s a shitload of stuff with that title, then I came up with THE TOSS-UP, but then last night I had a brain fart, and RHYMES WITH LUCK popped in my head.

Which do you like?

 

And here’s the synopsis:

It’s Fall, 1993, the start of a new semester on the Northern Oregon University campus, and Robert Brinkerhoff is on a bench eating lunch while watching co-eds move into the dorms.  He’s single again, but the watching only fuels his fantasy life.  He writes short stories on the side, and occasionally he delves into bawdy fiction for the pulps.  While that writing might help pay the bills, it doesn’t help him find another smart, dynamic woman in his life, and he’s also not progressing academically, either.  Still an Assistant Professor in Communications, he knows he can’t get on the tenure track unless he completes his Ph.D.  He’s done as much about that as he has his dating life.

Preparing for the new semester, he’s hoping that the new crop of graduate assistants will pan out, and for once, he’ll get a helper for the student radio station who knows something about radio.  Acting as the faculty advisor for the station is one of the many little things he does to stay in Department Head Stan MacNeil’s good graces.

Robert is one of two professors who teach speech lectures for NOU; the graduate assistants teach the individual lab classes, and everyone meets once a week in “Seminar” to discuss those classes.  In one Seminar a GA describes an unusual (to her) event – an older student (old enough to be her mom) shocked her by using the F-word in a speech.  Curious as to the back story of the speech, Robert makes it a point to seek out the “fuck lady.”  Later that day he bumps into Rachel Shipley, the speaker, and is smitten.

University policy frowns on fraternization with students, but Robert thinks if he keeps it platonic, he’s OK until Rachel finishes her speech class, the only one in his department (she’s a Marketing major).  They strike up a friendship, and he discovers the reason Rachel gave the speech she did and used the F-word, though she’s not very forthcoming on details.

Robert does another good turn for MacNeil and fixes the department laptop, earning brownie points to use later.  His friendship with Rachel turns serious over the Thanksgiving break, as he invites her back to his mom’s place in Albany and she finally tells him the whole story.  When she was younger and in school the first time around, she became pregnant and had to drop out.  She had the baby but got divorced a few years later, hating her daughter and breaking all ties with the family.  On the drive back to campus things get a bit romantic, but Rachel insists that her schooling comes first, as she doesn’t want anything to prevent her from getting her degree this time around.

Things remain cool with Robert and Rachel, and just before the department Christmas party, he learns he’s losing his GA at the station.  He’s bummed because he promised Rachel he’d get back to his dissertation to finish his doctorate, but he gets to cash in his brownie points when MacNeil assigns a new GA to him.  He meets her at the party and becomes infatuated by both her brains and her beauty.

Stacey Mills would be Robert’s ideal mate except for the fact that he’s twice her age and they work in the same department, but he still can’t get her out of his mind.  Meanwhile, Rachel signs up for a heavier class load, putting a crimp in her time with Robert.  He doesn’t mind too much, as he thinks about spending more time with Stacey and fulfilling his promise to work on his dissertation.

Over the break, Robert discovers the floppy disks holding his dissertation writing and notes are damaged and his backup is blank.  This causes a drunken spree and a writing orgy, where he pens a series of Letters to The Penthouse Editor featuring Stacey. 

As the second semester begins, he’s convinced that a doctorate isn’t in the cards, and since he’s selling more of his ribald writing, a different career track is an option.  He’s having weekly Sunday dinners with Rachel that are fun, but there’s no sex.  He finally tells her Ph.D. is dead; she gets mad and reveals she was holding out on him so she could reward him with sex for various completion points on his doctorate.  Now, all that’s off the table.

As the term progresses, she gets busier and puts his off; they don’t meet for almost a month.  Frustrated, Robert decides to seduce Stacey, deciding that there’s no harm if no one knows about it.  Turns out she has the same idea; they go out of town for pizza and spend the night at a nearby motel having wild sex.  That same weekend Rachel calls him.  She feels bad about everything and wants to rekindle the relationship.  They have dinner again, and finally, sex.

(last three paragraphs are in "white" font, remember?)

Now he having relations with both women, at different locations on different days.  Still convinced he can have it all and keep it all hush-hush.  Near the end of the semester there comes a day when both Stacey and Rachel expect to be with him.  Since he can’t be in two places at once, he must choose.  But which one?  He flips a coin, an old trick his mother taught him – when the coin is in the air, your brain makes the decision (and ignores how the coin falls).  He picks Rachel.

He plans to spend the night with her, but after dinner and sex, he confesses his love for her.  He’s convinced she feels the same.  She coyly admits she feels somewhat similar, as she was practicing signing her name “Rachel Brinkerhoff.”  She tells him it’s a lot tougher than her previous married name…Mills.

The final scene finds Robert at the start of a new semester, sitting on a bench eating lunch at the University of Oregon.  He’s convinced Stacey is Rachel’s daughter, and knew he had to leave NOU and Maple Falls, and start all over again.

THE END