Colton: Wordsmith Chronicles Book 2 (The Wordsmith Chronicles)

by Christopher Harlan

  “Speaking of the one and only Knight, did he tell you?”

  “Tell me what?” Gray asks.

  “We texted last night. I had a question for him. I actually did invite him but he told me he couldn’t come because he was meeting his agent.”

  “Agent? Who?”

  “Some lady in the city. He told me her name but I forget.”

  “Holy shit, he really is getting big.”

  “Yeah. And I couldn’t be happier for him. He’s doing everything right. He’s trying to take his career to the next level.”

  “So he’s just looking for representation for the future, or what?”

  “He’s been writing. He’s been writing a lot, actually. He told me he finally stopped writing notes on his phone and that he’s using the laptop I got him.”

  “I meant to tell you—that was really fucking cool of you, man. Especially with all the shit you have going on, to do something selfless like that was awesome.”

  “Thanks, dude, I appreciate that. I feel like all this bullshit started with that old laptop of Mike’s. I remember how despondent he was on the trip home from the signing. I know he moved on after that, but I wanted to make things right. I guess beating KL up wasn’t the best way, so I tried option two.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Gray says.

  “Anything, man.”

  “How did it feel to hit that bastard?”

  I smile as we approach the Jiu Jitsu academy. I can see the awning from a few blocks away, but in this traffic a few blocks away might be a twenty minute endeavor. “It felt great, if I’m being honest. It felt fucking great.”

  “I mean, I know you shouldn’t have beat him up and all, but I was just wondering.”“Yeah. Well I’m paying for that part. It could have been worse.”

  “Oh, yeah, how’s all that going?”

  “Good so far, but we’ll see where it all takes me. But back to Mike for a second.”

  “Yeah, what’s he doing?”

  “So he told me that he’s trying to shop his next series to Harlequin. He’s going big. But he needs a good agent to help him get his books in front of the right people.”

  When I tell Gray, he looks out the window for a second. I’m expecting a response so when I don’t get one I turn from looking at the road to see if everything’s okay. “You good?”

  “Yeah, man. I’m just feeling frustrated. I’m proud of Mike. He’s doing all the right things. I should be doing those things, too.”

  “You and me both. I’m just trying to finish this next book and build a bigger platform so that when I shop my book around like Mike’s doing, I’m in a position where I’m attractive to them.”

  “You’re always attractive to me,” Gray jokes. I smile. “And building up a platform is the one thing I think I’ve done really well in my career.”

  Platform. I’ve heard that word so many times that I cringe using it myself, but it’s the industry term. In writing, a platform is the question you’ll be asked about first. How big is your platform? You’ll hear that shit out of agent’s mouths like a buzz phrase they’ve been trained to repeat over and over again. Basically your platform as an author refers to your audience—the people who know about you and will potentially buy your book. Today that platform includes social media, so how many followers/friends you have becomes a big deal. Publishing companies don’t want to do all the legwork of getting your book discovered by new readers, so they want to make sure people know who the hell you are. It makes sense, but sometimes it means spending more time than you want to promoting yourself on social media.

  “Is that the place?” Gray asks.

  “That’s the one.”

  I park in the back lot and grab my bag. Calem’s already inside finishing up the beginner class when we get there. I take private lessons due to my schedule, so I arranged one for me that Gray can watch, and then one for him. He’s never trained a day in his life but he’s a big, fit guy, so this should be interesting.

  After a few minutes of stretching Calem dismisses his class, shakes a few hands, and waves us over to the center of the mat. “How do you like teaching beginners?” I ask.

  “It’s one of my favorite things to do,” he says with no hesitation whatsoever. “It keeps my fundamentals strong because I have to go over the tiniest details with them over and over again. Beginners are the best students because they have no ego and they’re not afraid to ask good questions. Kind of like you.”

  Calem points at Gray, who looks horrified for a second.

  “Me?” he asks, pointing to his own chest with his index finger.

  “Yes, you. Don’t be afraid to be a beginner and ask me questions. Nothing is too stupid.”

  “All right,” Gray agrees, still looking like a deer in headlights.

  “So, who’s going first?”

  When Calem asks that it’s like asking who wants to get shot by the firing squad first. There’s no good answer, it’s just a matter of whether or not you want to get something over quickly, or drag out your anticipation of its occurrence. Apparently Gray wants to get it the hell over with because he raises his hand like an overzealous teacher’s pet in science class. Calem smiles.

  “All right then, I respect that. Let’s go.”

  Calem’s hamming it up a little. It’s not like he’s going to beat Gray’s ass or anything—that’s the opposite of what Jiu Jitsu is about. He knows that better than anyone, but he’s a guy like us and he likes messing with other guys from time to time, especially if they look scared.

  I watch them for a few minutes and I feel happy because despite the fact that a two hundred pound black belt is mounted on top of him and is moving him all over the mat like a child, Gray’s got a huge smile on his face. This was just what the doctor ordered, and I hope that he sticks with it, even if I can’t make it to class with him every time. Jiu Jitsu changes lives, and I’m hoping it’ll take the edge off some of the things he’s been feeing recently.

  After his twenty minute introductory lesson Gray’s sweating all over the place and panting like a dog. People who haven’t grappled—or at least haven’t grappled in a long time—forget how rigorous it is on your body. It’s not like doing cardio, or lifting weights, or even boxing. Grappling arts like wrestling, Judo, and Jiu Jitsu will wear out your muscles like almost nothing else will. But Gray couldn’t look more invigorated. “That was fucking awesome,” he says like a kid who just tasted ice cream for the first time. “When are we coming back?”

  “You can come back anytime,” I tell him. “And you should. I do this at weird hours around my writing schedule and whatever else I have going on, and you can do the same. Why don’t you grab one of those brochures at the front desk and check it out while I roll?”

  “I will,” he says. “But I wanna watch you guys for a while first. How long are you going?”

  “Half hour,” I tell him. “Not too long.”

  “No rush.”

  Calem and I roll pretty hard for a while. Whenever I can spare a sideways glance without the threat of Calem taking my neck and choking me out, I steal a glimpse at Gray, who’s just staring and digesting everything we’re doing. I don’t have much time to focus on him with this gorilla on top of me, so after I take a quick look to the side I’m back looking at Calem as he passes my guard like I was a white belt, and then he moves into side control. I feel off my game today, but that doesn’t matter.

  This is why we train.

  We train to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

  That’s the main purpose of this. Not only to learn some great techniques and get some good exercise, but to get your mind used to bad situations that you need to figure out a way out of. I’ve said it a million times before, but Jiu Jitsu is a metaphor for life, and the guys who are arrogant and have a huge ego don’t last, because everyone gets crushed in Jiu Jitsu. The ones who become great embrace getting crushed and see it as a learning opportunity. The ones with the huge egos run away screaming.

&
nbsp; We finish our roll and go over a few new techniques before the lesson’s through. I feel sore as hell, but in a good way. I always have this rush of adrenaline after class, no matter how beat up my body is. I think the lesson had the same effect on Gray, because he’s more energetic now than he was when we got here.

  He thanks Calem and we get changed. On the way out he pulls me over to talk to the guy at the counter about some pricing for classes and private lessons. “I’m excited for you.”

  “This was a great idea, dude. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Oh, by the way, I got a shipping notification from Createspace that the paperbacks of the anthology should be delivered by tomorrow afternoon. Why don’t you and Mike come over for some pizza and we can admire our handy work.”

  “Sounds good, I’ll tell him. Or maybe I should fax his agent and they can tell him.”

  “Do people still fax?” I ask, smiling.

  “Not sure, but I can text her for sure. Either way we’ll be there.”

  We go our separate ways and I decide to do two things for the rest of the day. First, I have to come up with an idea for a cool date. That’s number one. But a close second is working on The Gentle Art. I’ve been in a writing slump and I need to get myself out of it.

  I think I have an idea of who I’m going to base the female character around.

  12

  Colton

  The paperbacks finally came!

  I came home and saw the Createspace boxes sitting on my doorstop. It was like romance Christmas morning. I grabbed the box, stumbled to get my key in the door, and took a pair of scissors to the tape that trapped the books inside the box. Publishing an ebook is awesome, but it’s another thing altogether to have your hands on a real paperback that you created. There’s something about holding something tangible in your hands that represents the manifestation of countless hours of effort. It makes the whole thing real in a way that an ebook just never can.

  After I dig into the first box I go back outside and grab the rest of the boxes. We ordered a lot of copies for the signing and we have to lug them all there ourselves, so I’d better get used to having these boxes around. I also ordered copies of all of our individual books. I grab a copy of Fist, the first book in my MMA series, from the top of the pile and hold it up like Mufasa holding up baby Simba in The Lion King. That book is my baby—the series that’s brought me the most success I’ve had so far as an author.

  I just know that I’m going to do something great with this series. It’s a feeling I have in my bones. First off, the story has it all—it’s an underdog story about struggle, perseverance, and overcoming obstacles to take a shot at your dreams. That, plus some touch-yourself-while-reading level sex scenes. A lot of them!

  I open up one of the paperbacks to a random page and inhale deeply. There’s nothing like the smell of a book. I know that I’m biased as fuck here, but I really think that our cover is the best shot Brody’s done so far. Everything’s working—the lighting, the angle, the font my cover designer used for the title. As anthologies go it’s a little light on authors. There’s Knight, Gray and myself, of course, but we were lucky enough to get True North and G to contribute! G’s impact is actually all over the book now. He contributed a story, and took the shot of Brody that adorns the amazing cover.

  The real prize was North, though. He’s a big time author, and he had an extra unpublished short story that needed a placement, and he was kind enough to send it over to us to use, free of charge. He’s not taking any royalties from the book or anything.

  I invited the guys over to hang out and get a pizza so they could see the book and formalize our plans for RAAC. There are a lot of moving parts and this is easily the biggest thing we’ve done as writers yet. I fucked up a bunch already, so I want to make sure this goes off without a hitch. My bell rings at seven on the dot, and I see that it’s Grayson who’s gotten here first. Mike texted me that he was going to be late.

  “Hey, man, what’s up?”

  “Besides crazy traffic, not much, how about you?”

  “I wanna show you the books. I want you to hold a copy, but we should really. . .”

  “Wait for Mike,” he says, finishing my sentence. “I agree. It wouldn’t be right to do without him. Did you order the pizza?”

  “Yeah, about five minutes ago, but they said it would be like forty-five minutes, so everything should be timed perfectly if Mike moves his ass. How are you feeling?”

  “I feel great,” he answers. “I went back to train again, on my own, a few times.”

  “Oh, shit, look at you! That’s awesome, man, you loving it?”

  “I am. It’s so good for my mental state. Not only have I been working out, but I’ve been writing more once I get home. It’s like the exercise woke my mind up to all these ideas where my stories could go. It was amazing.”

  “I’m so fucking happy to hear that, dude. I hate when you’re down. I understand it, but I hate it. I’m really glad to hear that. We’ll go more often.”

  “Thanks, dude. So the books look good?”

  “They’re fucking siiiiick! Brody looks amazing!”

  “Alright, screw Mike, he’s late, lemme see.” I go into one of the closed boxes, pull out a copy, and hand it to Gray. His eyes light up. “You described it perfectly. This is sick. The women are going to love it.” Brody is one of the most popular models out there—he’s been on countless covers before but no one ever gets sick of him. The guy is bodied the fuck up! Muscular, good looking, and photogenic as hell, he’s the perfect guy. “G takes such great shots for covers. I think I need to contact him for my next one.”

  “Do it, man. He’s got a great gallery. Whether it’s Brody or one of the other guys.” G’s photo company, Fierce Fotos, is one of the most sought-after galleries by models looking to work, and authors looking for great shots for their books.

  “I might have to. Brody looks great in this shot, too. Good choice.”

  Normally custom photography shoots cost an arm and a leg, but G gave me a deal because he was already shooting something similar to what I wanted with one of his other models. On top it reads “The Wordsmith Anthology—featuring stores from 5 of your favorite romance authors.”

  G and True North were cool enough to contribute with stories they’d already written and had on the shelf. They’re both way too busy to write something original right now that isn’t one of their own books, but we all really appreciate that they’re trying to help us be successful. Three authors, no matter how popular, really aren’t enough to sell an anthology, so we needed a little bit of help. One thing about the three of us—even though we stick together like brothers and have each other’s back, we also each have strong individual relationships with a lot of people in this industry. Gray was actually a master of doing that when we first started.

  Gray’s a beast, plain and simple. When he’s not encumbered by some of his depression issues—especially when we first started—he hustled like I’ve never seen anyone hustle before. Not only did he crack out book after book with nothing but pure discipline, he was a master of building infrastructure around his career. Whether it was setting up and gaining followers on social media accounts, collecting emails for a newsletter subscriber list, setting up his own website, or setting up all the author pages on the publishing platforms like Amazon, Gray was a student of the game when Mike and I just wanted to write stories. Gray did both, and then he helped us with all of those things in turn.

  Just as we’re admiring our handy work on the book, Mike shows up. I meet him at the door. “You’re late, motherfucker.”

  “Don’t blame me, blame traffic. I come bearing gifts.”

  I see that he’s holding two pizza boxes in his hand. “Shit, I thought your sales were taking off. Now you’re delivering pizzas? I think this writing thing was a bad idea, Mike.”

  “Asshole, let me in. I ran into the delivery guy outside so I just grabbed them from him.”

  “Did he ask for y
our autograph? Did he want a selfie with the one and only Knight?”

  “Is being a dick like a genetic thing with you, or do you practice a little each day?”

  “Like anyone who’s good at anything, Mike, it’s a little of both. Nature and nurture, you know?”

  I stop fucking with him long enough to let each of us laugh a little and let him bring dinner through the doorway. Gray grabs the beers from my fridge and shows Mike the cover of the anthology. His eyes light up when he sees it also. “Oh we’re gonna sell so many copies of this! Guaranteed!”

  “Don’t say that, man, you’ll jinx it.”

  “Grayson,” Mike answers. “I will not listen to your superstitious nonsense right now. Listen to me—we-will-sell-a-fuckton-of-this-book. You understand me?”

  Gray nods and smiles. Mike’s noticeably more confident since his career took an upswing after ForEver hit the Amazon lists. It’s great to see, and I hope it rubs off on both of us and helps sell some copies of this anthology. “How was shopping for publishers?” I ask.

  “Annoying, mostly. Tiring. But cool at the same time. Know what I mean?”

  “I don’t, actually. Never been through it.”

  “I’m still going to publish independently, even if I end up getting a deal with a traditional publication company. But what I’m really trying to do is branch into audiobooks for my backlist and work on getting my books into international markets.”

  “That’s a great idea, Mike,” Gray says. “There’s a lot of money in spreading out like that.”

  “It’s going well, it’s just taking away from writing time. I wrote ForEver so damn fast because I was inspired. But since then I have all these meetings, and more meetings, and more fucking meetings.”

  “You know the rule, Mike,” I say. “You’ve gotta publish. I’m not taking anything away from you, but you’re not EL James and ForEver ain’t Fifty Shades famous. You know people’s attention span. The wave of success you’re riding now is going to come to an end when the next wave of great new releases comes out. You’ve gotta stay relevant.”