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【ｐｏｓｔｅｄ　ｏｎ　２４／０６／２０２１】

Ｏｌｉｖｉａ
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Rain patters gently against the roof, but it's only a faint ambient sound beyond the medium-volume Halsey song pouring from my headphones.

This whole 'working from home' thing has its perks. I mean, right now instead of being hunched over at my desk in a fairly comfortable open-plan office, I'm lying upside down on my grecian blue couch, gripping a thick manuscript between one hand and twirling a pen in the other.

My wildly quirky 30-something publisher, Mae Madden, had decided that she only wanted 'essential client meetings and monthly check-ins' to be done from the pristine offices of Rêve Publishing. She also insisted it would let 'the heart grow fonder' and some other crap about appreciating our 'silly' faces more if she didn't have to see them every day. She means well, but she's just a bit of an unusual character. I guess that's kind of why I adore her and her antics. The unpredictability keeps me entertained.

I miss being around people every day, but it is nice to not have to be presentable each day when there is never a day that goes by where I wake up refreshed. Whoever wakes up not tired is lying to themselves.

There's also the somewhat tedious, but really privileged opportunity that is my job. I'm a manuscript editor and screener. I read dozens a day (yes, a day) and pass my recommendations for potential publishing goldmines off to Mae. Once we've signed a writer, I take on the timely task of proofing each and every draft the writer submits before we reach final print.

I don't hate my job, but it doesn't exactly spark joy, or whatever it is that Marie Kondo woman preaches about. I'm just... indifferent to it. Don't get me wrong though, I still put in 200% effort with everything I do. But I miss being creative and making something myself instead of fine-tuning everyone else's art.

But there's no need for me to wallow in more self-pity.

Anyway, back to this juicy, unnecessarily smutty novella I'm currently screening. My top guess right now about this writer is that she or he is some vanilla cupcake when it comes to sex, secretly lusting for some BDSM shit that she or he probably doesn't even understand. At screening stage, the identity is usually kept from me so there's no bias. Not that I would discriminate based on gender, but it's company policy, I guess. I try to make my screenings interesting by imagining a whole backstory or narrative about the writers of the submissions I read. It keeps my creative mind active, and makes for a few hilarious images in my brain.

I don't think I'll be recommending this novella for signing, but bless this misguided soul's heart for even trying to write a smutty narrative centered during a war-torn France.

Halfway through 'Drive' by Halsey, the song halts and an obnoxiously loud default iPhone ringtone blares through my headphones, startling me. I jolt and tumble off the couch, landing shoulder first and ripping the headphones from the audio jack in the process. Maybe I shouldn't lie like that on here anymore.

Frowning and rubbing my shoulder, I accept the call and bring the phone to my ear. Only Cat calls me at this time during a workday, usually about how she can't decide how to tell her stone-faced boss that she needs two days vacation to visit her grandmother in Washington, or because she has a spinach ravioli craving and insists we have it for dinner. There's no in-between.