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Two days until my deadline, and the words refused to co-operate. I sat in my small office, in my small flat, staring at the cheerfully blinking cursor on my computer screen, silently damning the writer’s block that had plagued me for the past month. Finally, I gave up and shut off the monitor.

“Well, Sherman,” I sighed, reaching down to pet my lazy tabby cat as he rubbed against my legs. “It looks like today’s a bust, too, isn’t it?” He purred in response, and I vaguely wondered if my editor would accept Sherman’s idea of dialogue. I grabbed my empty coffee mug and went into the kitchen for a re-fill.

I’d been working on my new book for six months now, and though I hadn’t always had this vicious case of writer’s block, I was still a long way from being finished. My quarterly deadline was way too close, and I doubted I’d be ready.

As I was stirring an extra teaspoon of sugar into my coffee, the phone rang. Sighing, I went back into my office to answer it.

“Grant,” I said, shooing Sherman from my chair so I could sit down.

“Peyton, it’s me,” Olivia, my agent, said in her raspy voice, made deep and scratchy by too many years of smoking.

“What’s up?” I asked cautiously, knowing she only ever called me to remind me of deadlines, or to report on the slipping status of my latest book on some chart or another.

“There’s a meeting this week that I need you to be at,” she said firmly. Her tone indicated that this wasn’t a request.

“You know I don’t do meetings,” I said, adjusting the jacket to my grey track suit. “That’s what I pay you for, remember?”

“The studio’s insisting,” she pressed, getting annoyed.

“Studio?”

“Yes, the studio that wants to option your first book,” Olivia said, her exasperation evident. “Didn’t you get my e-mail?”

“I don’t really check my e-mail,” I said, somewhat sheepishly. “I mean, how many ads for penis enlargement devices can a person get in a day?”

“Whatever,” she snapped. Since she spent most of her life on her computer, she didn’t understand my reluctance to do the same. “Warner Brothers wants After Midnight, and they want to meet the author.”

“But Dominique Marceaux doesn’t exist,” I pointed out, referring to my pen name. I’d always preferred the anonymity of a pen name, to the point where even the ‘About the Author’ section of my book was fictional. I also refused to do book signings, something Olivia assured me hurt my sales, but I thought my two New York Times bestsellers said otherwise.

“I’m sorry, ‘Liv,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “I’m the last person a big Hollywood studio wants to sit down with. You’ll just have to think of something.”

“I’ve been trying, believe me,” she sighed. I heard her light a cigarette and take a long drag off it. “But they’ve already got big names interested, and they want to make sure we can come to an understanding quickly, so they can start pre-production.”

“And you can’t handle that?”

“They don’t want to talk to me,” she said, exhaling heavily. “I’ve done all I can do at this point.”

“And if I say no?” I asked as Sherman jumped up on my lap, purring softly.

“There’s a chance the deal will fall through,” she admitted. “They’re being really insistent about this.”

“Do they know I use a pen name?” I asked, my stomach knotting at the idea that I may actually have to sit down with these big-wigs.

“Not exactly,” she said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning they know that your bio in the back of the book is crap,” she said. “But they’re not aware that Peyton Grant is the actual author, not Dominique Marceaux.”

“And are we planning on telling them that?” I asked, shifting Sherman onto my desk and turning on my monitor again.

“I was going to leave that to you,” she said. “If you want them to know your real name, go for it. Otherwise, let them call you Dominique for an afternoon, and that’ll be that.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” I pointed out, randomly shuffling my notes, just to keep my hands busy. “Dominique Marceaux is a world-famous recluse, remember? She’s never been seen making a public appearance, or taking a meeting with anyone. It’s part of the mystique surrounding my career, and actually meeting with these guys will blow that all to hell.”

“I think that’s why they’re insisting on seeing you,” Olivia said, lighting another cigarette. “They want to make sure you’re a real person.”

“Okay, look, here’s the bottom line,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger as a dull headache started behind my left eye. “I haven’t been out of my apartment in months, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.” My mind was working furiously to figure out a way that we could keep this deal without me having to go out in public. “Tell them that I will do a phone meeting, but that’s it,” I said after a brief pause.

“I may be able to sell that,” ‘Liv said thoughtfully. “We’ll tell them you’re under a time crunch for your new book, which, might I add, you are, and that you can’t take the time out to fly to Los Angeles to meet with them. They might actually buy that. I’ll call you back.” She hung up.

I sighed as I stared at my blank screen for the hundredth time that day. That cursor seemed to be taunting me, daring me to write something, anything, as long as it was real words and not the frustrated key strokes I’d made earlier that morning. I tapped my fingers on my desk, much to Sherman’s annoyance, I got up and walked around the room, trying to get an idea or two to form in my mind, but I just couldn’t do it.

“This is so stupid,” I said aloud, shoving my desk chair roughly away from me. Writer’s block was the one thing I hated more than having to be seen in public. It hindered me from doing what I was good at, what I loved to do, and worse, it made me doubt that I was as talented as everyone said I was. I’d had six novels published in just over five years, and had never once had such a prolonged creative drought.

Any time I had problems coming up with ideas, my mother would always tell me to go out into the world to find inspiration, but I always told her, in no uncertain terms, what she could do with that idea. I know she has all these elaborate plans for a big white wedding and a million grandkids running around, but the truth was, that wasn’t really me. Since my accident, I preferred the safety and serenity that my small flat offered me, away from the ignorant stares of people who didn’t know any better, even though they should. No one judged me in my own home, and I had all of the human contact I needed over the telephone. The few friends I had stopped by once in awhile, but for the most part, Sherman was my only company, and nothing pleased me more.

My accident was the reason I went into writing in the first place, actually. Writing gave me a well-paying career (well, once I was published, anyway), and the luxury of not having to go to a stuffy office building every day. While I was recovering in the hospital, I spent a lot of time with my laptop open in front of me, pouring my anger and resentment onto the blank pages, and before I knew it, that spew had turned into my first book, the one Warner Brothers wanted, After Midnight. I let some people read it, and ended up submitting it to Harper-Collins. Much to my surprise and delight, they picked it up immediately. I’ve been working with them ever since.

Some people say I’m hiding from the world, from the pain I know is waiting outside my door, and those people are absolutely right. My accident, which left me with some not-so-nice scars and a weight problem I couldn’t really control, had completely altered my way of looking at the world, not to mention my way of looking at myself. I hated mirrors now, and so only kept a small one in the bathroom to make sure there weren’t any nasty horns or anything growing out of my head from time-to-time, and to make sure that my scars were still there, as stupid as that sounds. I couldn’t see the majority of them, since they were on my back, but the wrinkled, disfigured flesh of my left shoulder and below my left ear were plenty visible to me in my small hand-held mirror. I loathed them, yet they fascinated me. The idea that skin could do that when exposed to flame just boggled my mind, and made me remember just how lucky I was to be alive.

The shrill blast of the telephone snapped me out of my frustrated daze, and I snatched the portable from its cradle in the living room, where I was now pacing with my coffee cup.

“Will you be around tomorrow afternoon, around three?” Olivia said with no pretense of a greeting.

“What do you think?” I said, rolling my eyes. She didn’t need to ask such a dumb question; she knew I was always around.

“I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t had some sort of epiphany and decided to come out of your dungeon for a few hours,” she said, somewhat irritably. “The Warner Brothers guys are going to call you to discuss the book rights.”

“Do I need a phony accent?” I teased, knowing that the bio in my books said Dominique was French.

“Nah, they know that stuff is bullshit,” she said. “You’ll be talking to a producer, a studio something-or-other, and the lead actor they’re looking to sign, so I hope you’re ready for this.”

“Why do I need to talk to the lead actor?” I asked, taking my jacket off and throwing it over the edge of my already-cluttered couch. Cleaning was not one of my strong points.

“He has some questions about the character or some shit like that,” she said, and I could almost hear her shrugging through the phone. “I don’t ask questions, they sign the cheques.”

“I suppose,” I said, straightening my white t-shirt where it had ridden up when I took the jacket off. “Okay, three o’clock tomorrow, I think I can handle that.”

“How’s your new book coming along?” I’d wondered how long it would be before that question reared its ugly head. There was always an undertone of accusation when Olivia asked that question, like she didn’t believe I actually did any work while I was holed up in my flat.

“Killer writer’s block might make my deadline a problem,” I said, clearing a space on my couch so I could sit down. There were about two months’ worth of magazines and unpaid bills scattered there, and moving them reminded me that I should probably do something about them.

“Do you need some extra time?” she asked hesitantly. It was her job to tell my editor if I wasn’t going to make a deadline, and since Georgeanne was such a hard-ass, Olivia always dreaded those conversations.

“It might not be a bad idea,” I said, beginning to sort through my bills, shoving the magazines to the floor. I’d deal with them later. “I mean, I’m about twenty pages short of where I should be, and you know how Georgie gets when that happens.”

“For fuck sakes, Peyton,” Olivia snapped. “You’ve had how many months now to write 150 pages? What is the big issue?”

“Have you ever actually read one of my books, or do you just accept the fact that they pay your wages?” I asked, getting annoyed at her. “Believe it or not, writing takes some serious work, ‘Liv. And when my head doesn’t want to think up new ideas, I can’t do much about it, now can I?”

“Are you at least trying?”

“No, I’m sitting here with my thumb up my ass, waiting for Sherman to pop out my next bestseller,” I said, rolling my eyes. I noticed that my cable bill was particularly overdue and flinched.

“Okay, calm down,” ‘Liv said, sounding eerily like my mother. “I’ll call Georgie and get you another week or two. Will that be enough time?”

“If some stupid ass agents would stop wasting my time with meetings from big pretentious studios, then yes, I think it’ll be plenty,” I said.

“How about you pump some of that sarcasm into your book and quit wasting it on me?” she said. “Call me tomorrow after the meeting and I’ll get the paperwork ready.”

I put down the phone and trudged back into my office, the pile of bills in my hand. I opened a new browser on my computer and went to my bank’s website so I could pay them. I wasn’t normally this irresponsible, but when my deadlines got close, I became a little scatterbrained, and some things got overlooked, like my bills. Plus, I wasn’t due for another royalty cheque for almost a month, so money was getting a little bit tight. I made a mental note to cut back on buying Sherman toys on the internet, finished my bills, and went back to my book. Needless to say, it was a very long afternoon.