Chapter 19 - Advertising

Monday, October 12th

“Whew! That’s it,” I turned from the keyboard, stood up, and stretched.

“What’s it?” Jane asked from our bedroom. I was in my office tower room, staring at my computer screen.

“I’m done with my first draft of my novel.”

“Congratulations! I’m glad to hear it, Jake. I’ve felt like a widow this past week.”

“Aw, let me hug you and let you know you’re not a widow.”

“Mmm.” Jane nestled against my chest. Then she looked up at me. “What are you going to call it?”

“’Sorcerer’s Apprentices’ is my working title.”

“Meh. Won’t you get sued for that? That’s already a movie title.”

“You can’t copyright titles. Yeah, I feel the title can be better, but I can’t think of anything.”

“How long will it take to edit it?”

“I don’t know; I’ve never edited anything before. It took me a week to write. Let’s shoot for a week to edit. How about I read it to you? It’s only about fifty thousand words.”

“I’m game. Go for it.”

* * *

“The End,” I finished, some hours, and several oatmeal cookies and cups of tea later.

“Not bad,” Jane said. “You can use some more description in spots.”

“Yeah, I made notes in my file as I read it. I also marked all the mistakes I made. Was it funny?”

“Parts of it. Other parts just made me roll my eyes.”

“Not everyone has the same sense of humor. Ironically, just about everything I wrote about has been mentioned in the news.”

“Even the flying car? The stuffed dragon?”

“Yup. Each has been cited by two or more sources. I’ve got a video of the dragon.”

“Woah. Let me see that.”

I played it for her. I had links to all my sources in my planning document.

“Wow. That looked real.”

“I think it is. The poster just wrote: ‘Real or Fake? You decide’. It’s all over the internet.”

“Are you using magic to write your book?” Jane looked concerned.

“No. I never thought of that.”

“How about for editing?”

“I don’t think so. I have an editing program to find my grammatical errors. I wouldn’t trust magic to write my story correctly.”

“You’re self-publishing this book, right?”

“Oh yeah. There’s no way I’d wait years to get an agent and a publisher.”

“How long have you been sitting here in your office?”

“Too long.”

“Why don’t you go out and walk to the lakefront? It does you no good to write a best-selling novel and die of a heart attack? I’d miss you, too. It’s a beautiful fall day. I’ll rake some leaves. That’ll be my exercise.”

“Great idea!” I kissed her and went out.

The maple and oak trees were turning gold and red. The air smelled of autumn.

I bounded along, my long legs eating up the blocks to the lake. Our street ran north and south in Lakewood. It dead-ended at Lake Erie.

I came to a light at Clifton Avenue. Heavy traffic clogged the road as the evening rush hour began. Two blocks to go. I heard a rapid tapping behind me, like someone running in hard shoes. I turned around and saw a bipedal dinosaur. It seemed to be made out of plastic.

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“Woah! You look like an Oviraptor.”

It clacked its hard beak, turned, and showed me its tail. Neatly written there, in molded plastic, was Oviraptor 5 feet.

“Huh. Are you a plastic dinosaur, animated by magic?”

It clacked its beak and looked behind it. A swarm of dinosaurs came up the street, two were as big as elephants. A Tyrannosaurus Rex loomed over one. Beside it, equal in bulk, if not height, came a Triceratops. Barely visible behind the neck shield rode a little kid.

I held my breath as the pack of velociraptors and the bigger dinosaurs crowded around me at the light. One misstep and I’d be squished. The kid looked down at me from the eight-foot-high back of the plastic creature.

“Hey, mister! Why are you waiting here?”

“The light is red. I suppose you’ll stop traffic.”

“Just wish the light green, mister.” The light flashed from red to green. There was no yellow at all in the other direction. Several cars squealed to a stop, while others raced through.

“Thanks. Are these dinos safe to walk with?” I trotted next to the horned dinosaur.

“Yeah, no problem. They just do what I tell them. I hope someone will try to attack me, but most people just run away.”

“You wished them to this size and to be alive?”

“Yup. When I saw the video of the flying dragon, I thought it’d be cool to play with life-sized dinosaurs.”

“I’m going to the lake. My name’s Jake. What’s yours?”

“Sy.”

“Short for Sylvester?”

“Yeah. I don’t like it.”

“Do kids give you trouble about it at school?”

“No, it’s just too long to print out every day. I’m in second grade.”

“Do your parents know you’re out here?”

“Yeah. I told them I was playing with my dinosaurs.” When we got to Lake Avenue, Sy turned his pack.

“Where are you going?”

“To the park. They like to play in the lake.”

“I’ll go with you. You’ve given me some good ideas for my book.”

“Wow. You write books, Mr. Jake?”

“This one’s my first. It’s all about magic in the world.”

“That’s great. I’ll want to read it. I love using magic. It’s so easy.”

“So where do you store your dinosaurs at home?”

“Oh, I shrink them down and put them in this bag.” He pointed to a cloth bag he sat upon.

I walked with Sy to the park. It was a warm sunny day, maybe the last of the autumn. The breeze ruffled the lake into white caps. Sy’s dinos raced down to the lake and splashed in. Sy threw a stick.

“Fetch, Rex!”

Rex popped out of the water. Five-foot-long jaws snapped and the stick disappeared.

“Oops. I need a bigger stick.” Sy picked up another, threw it, and it grew to six feet long in the air. Rex grabbed it from the air, then trotted over to Sy and dropped the log with a thump in front of him.

“Good boy Rex!” He touched the log, it shrunk back to a stick, and he threw it. Rex raced after it.

After watching for a while I said, “Hey Sy! I’m going home for dinner. I’ll see you another day. I live on Lincoln. How about you?”

“Quail Court.”

“Do you come here every day?”

“Every day I don’t have school. Today’s a day off, Columbus Day.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. I guess I won’t see you until Saturday.”

“Yeah, I usually leave in the morning on Saturday.”

“I’ll see you then. I’ll read some of my book to you if you want.”

“Sounds great, Mr. Jake. I never met an author before.”

“I never met a kid with a pack of dinosaurs before. This’ll be fun to write about.”

* * *

Back at home, with some of Jane’s homemade Reuben sandwich inside of me, I wrote a chapter about Sy. I called him ‘Fry’, short for ‘small fry’, from his real name Freeman. “Ha!” ‘Real name’ in my book. I chuckled as I wrote.

Afterward, I went over all the changes I’d noted and Jane had suggested. I finished them off just before supper.

“What’s for supper, honey?” I came down the stairs to the kitchen.”

“Weiner schnitzel.”

“My favorite!”

“You say that about everything I make, including the Reuben sandwich you had for lunch.”

“That’s right. Everything you make is my favorite.”

“So why don’t you gain weight like I do?”

“High metabolism, baby. You keep me revved up.” I hugged her.

“Hmmph!” she snorted, but she snuggled against me.

After supper, I read Jane my revisions.

“Much better. I really liked the chapters about the boy and his dinosaurs. Fry.”

“Based upon real life. I met a boy Sy today, playing with his plastic dinosaurs. Fully animated and life-sized.”

I contacted my editor Sally Wagner, and emailed my manuscript to her.

“What should I do while I wait for Sally to edit my book? It’ll take her a month.” Jane and I sat before the fireplace after supper, sipping coffee and eating Jane’s Linzer Torte. Despite the warm day, the temperature was dropping to near freezing tonight.

“Do you have your blurb written?”

“Nope. That’s a good idea.” I pulled up my laptop and jotted off a quick two-hundred-word summary. I read it to Jane. “How’s that?”

“Meh. Sounds farfetched.”

“Hmm. The blurb is the most important selling tool, after the title and the cover. I wish I could write good ad copy!”

“That’s it! I wish for that too.”

“Huh?” I said stupidly, mouth agape.

“You big dummy. Use magic for writing ad copy.”

“Okay.” I looked at what I had written. It was obvious crap. I rewrote it and it felt much better. “Try this out.”

“Wow. That’s much better!”

“Thanks. I wish it were perfect for selling my book.” Before my eyes, the copy on my laptop re-arranged itself. “Amazing. Listen to this.” I read Jane the latest version.

“That makes me want to buy the book.”

“Me too, and I wrote it. I’ll send this to my editor and see what she thinks.”

“Too bad you can’t start selling now.”

“You know, I can. I’ll put my second draft online and put it up for presale on Amazin’. I’ll put the release date out until a month and a half after the editing is done, and it can go up for presale.”

“Okay. How about your title?”

“’Sorcerer’s Apprentices'? Yeah, that’s ‘meh’ too.”

“I wish it was a perfect title too!”

“Oh! Me too!” Before my eyes, the title changed. “’Magic Arrives’? Is that really better?”

“Yes. ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ is a cliché, but ‘Magic Arrives’ is intriguing. Unusual. Arrives where? What sort of magic?” She paused and then said, “This is exciting. Your first book. I’m married to an author!”

“An unknown author.” I smiled at Jane.

“But not for long.”

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