Robert, Her Billionaire Widower

“I’ve written a rough draft of the first chapter,” said Vanessa. “You can read it later, I think it would be a good idea to get some information about how I write and what my style is like.”

“Can I read it right now?” said Robert, eyeing the manuscript in her hand hungrily. He seemed desperate to get his hands on it, to read through the words that she had written. He seemed like he could barely contain himself, could barely come to terms with the fact that there, right in front of him, was the beginning of the story of him and his wife written out on paper by a ghostwriter. Vanessa had been expecting him to read it later but she decided that it might be a good idea if he read it now.

He settled down and started to read. It was an interesting experience, watching someone that was reading something she had written. It was certainly not the kind of experience that Vanessa was used to.

His expressions changed as he read what she had written, sometimes getting happy and other times getting sad. He laughed and chuckled and got morose as he read it, and all of that in a simple three thousand word rough draft that Vanessa had cooked up on the fly.

She enjoyed watching him read her work. It made her feel validated. It made her feel like she truly was a good writer, someone that was capable of producing works of true art. It made her feel like her writing truly had the ability to touch people, to make them feel like they had the ability to move past their grief. It made her feel like she had very accurately portrayed what Robert had asked her to portray, and this was extremely important because she was, at the end of the day, a ghostwriter whose job was to make sure that what she wrote pleased her client.

By the time Robert was done reading there were tears in his eyes. “This is wonderful,” he said. It was more of a whisper, something absolutely full of emotion, with so much emotion in there that Vanessa was taken aback. She hadn’t been expecting him to be so moved by a rough draft.

He sighed and said, “I didn’t think it would be this good. No offense, I mean I’m sure you’re a good writer but I wasn’t expecting something so utterly brilliant.”

“Was it difficult to read?” asked Vanessa. “It took you a while to read it.”

“Not at all,” said Robert with a laugh. “On the contrary, it was very easy to read indeed. I only took so long because I read it three times. I couldn’t read it just once, it was the kind of thing that I had to read multiple times, do you get what I mean?”

“Did you really like it that much?” asked Vanessa.

“I told you, it’s utterly brilliant. I didn’t think it would be this good simply because I didn’t think that I’d ever be able to find such a brilliant writer. I think that everything that was in this rough draft was perfect. In fact, I don’t think you should be calling this a rough draft anymore. I think you should call this the first chapter of the book.”

“Wow,” said Vanessa, extremely pleased. “Thank you so much, I really don’t know what to say.”

“I should be the one thanking you,” said Robert. “You’re the one who is writing so brilliantly and helping me come to terms with my wife’s death. You’re the one that’s allowing me to get over my grief by writing such an utterly beautiful account of the beginning of my relationship with my wife. I think what I like most about this is the fact that you wrote exactly what I told you. Not the words, of course, but the meat of the story. You wrote the story the way I had always wanted it to be told, and I really appreciate that. But more than that, I feel like you’ve capture my voice. I feel like I’m reading my own words in this chapter, even though they are far more eloquent and elegant than anything I’d ever be able to cook up on my own. When can you write more?”

“I thought that I’d have to rewrite this one based on your specifications,” said Vanessa. “I had honestly never expected you to like it. I guess I can start working side by side with the interviews. I think the next chapter will take more time, though. This one took a week, but think the next chapter will take about a month to write because it involves a lot more plot and would require a lot more effort to write in a way that would make you happy. What do you say to that?

“I will write a lot faster once the interviews are done, of course, it’s just that after the interviews and questions I don’t have a lot of time, and in order to write a chapter I have to focus on a lot of different areas. I need to gather my notes and compare them to the recordings I have made, I need to map the chapter out and make sure that I’m covering everything in a way that would give equal weight to each aspect of your story and then I would have to piece it all together in the writing of course. Then I’d have to proofread it, edit it and then rewrite probably because I would want the second chapter to be as good as the first if not a lot better.”

“All of that sounds perfectly fine,” said Robert. “I think you’re going to do an excellent job of finishing this book. You can take a month for the next chapter that’s completely fine, I have faith in you. Besides, you technically weren’t supposed to start writing until two months later, so we are ahead of schedule as far as I can see. Well done!”

Vanessa was extremely pleased with herself. Perhaps there was hope for her after all as a writer, perhaps she really did have it in her to make a novel that everyone would love to read. Perhaps, when all of this was done, she would be able to leave journalism behind her and make a work of true art, something that she had wanted to make for a very long time indeed. It had seemed for so long like a dream that would never come true, it had seemed very much like a pipe dream if she was honest with herself. But now, with all of the encouragement Robert had given her, she felt like there was hope after all.