When fate plays its hand
130

Chapter 0130

“Why would you say that I can’t write? Don’t you know how big of a humiliation that sentence is to an author?

“Yes, fine, you’re the editor, and I should trust your instincts and your eye for the market trends and whatnot. But those themes and topics aren’t my cup of tea. It’s too big of a change from my usual genre. I can’t do it even if I tried!

“I think we both need some time to cool down. Alright, I’m hanging up. I’ve got other things to do.”

Mindy hung up. She then turned and was met with Mirnda’s inquisitive eyes. She smiled and said, “It’s nothing. Just my editor from the publisher’s.”

“Are you sure it’s really nothing?”

“Why would I lie to you?” Mindy asked in amusement while pu g Miranda into a hug. “The publishing industry hasn’t been doing well lately. Many popular authors have switched to publishing web novels now, and they’re earning pots of gold from it.

“Of course, there were also a handful of them who failed and disappeared off the face of the earth. My editor wants me to switch like them and write web novels instead. But I haven’t been able to make up my mind about it yet, so I’m still on the fence.”

“Web novels?” Miranda repeated in surprise. “What kind of web novels?”

Mindy smiled awkwardly. “Urban romance.”

Miranda was speechless for a while.

Mindy was a published mystery novelist. Back when mystery novels had been all the craze, Mindy made her grand debut with “Murder Weapon” and sold half a million copies.

Later in the same year, her follow–up thriller novel, “The Deserted School“, broke her personal sales record in a very short time as well.

That year was known as “Mindy Harrison’s Year“. Both her books were published across five volumes, and made it to the top 5 best–selling books of

a tume in itat particular your

The editor she had mug was the same nor whom she’d signed with night after fuch of her subessful public Edith diver

Ana misracting with him for a while, tingly thought that Edith was a visionary full at thene she was also touched by Ediva peralatence, se she’d signed a fen year contract with her al one go

Soon after, all of Mindy’s works were first handed over to Edith for editing. publishing, and distribution

However, not everything went as Mindy Manned She didn’t manage to realize her dreams of furthering her career with Edith On the contrary, after signing with her, Mindy seemed to have been angel with a temble writer’s block.

Mindy’s ideas and proposals kept being turned down, with Edit ing they weren’t relatable for the current market and thus wouldn’t sell.

And if Mindy finally managed to plan out the entire novel plot and was raring to ge, she would then get a call from Edith saying that she had to change up the plet or else it wouldn’t werk

By the time Mindy was done changing the plot to what Edith wanted, Mindy would have already lest all interest in writing the novel.

Mindy fell troubled. Had her inspiration and imagination both run completely dry?

She still had so many stories, plots, and unable to put her thoughts into words anym

in her head. Was she simply

Sill, Mindy didn’t stop willing. She kept waiting every single day. By the time ten years passed, Mindy had already written well over a million words. However, they were all plots and stories that her editor had turned down before. Mindy simply took them as practice to write for fun.

Mindy never published any of those works. She never showed them to anybody else besides Lionel

However, it wasn’t true that Mindy never managed to publish any books at all during the ten year period.

Chace 130

+16 BORUS

She had tried writing a teenage high school romance book upon Edith’s request. Mindy had been told that the publishing house was trying to push her work to be made into a movie, especially since high school romance tropes were all the hype on TV and in novels at that time.

Unfortunately, teenage high school romance was not a genre that Mindy was good at writing. She wasn’t able to execute her ideas perfectly and she’d lost her way more often than not. In the end, she spent two whole years writing the high school romance novel.

By the time the book was published, which was a full year later, the winds had changed, and the public weren’t interested in such tropes anymore. Audiences viewed the teenage romance trope as trashy literature, and it was for that very reason that Mindy received a lot of hate.

Her longtime readers accused her of ruining the market for herself, and she was now reaping the sorry fruits of the seeds she’d sowed.

Meanwhile, audiences who actually read her book accused her of encouraging teenage romance in school and said that Mindy was sick in the head for writing something like that.

Online netizens were also ruthless in their comments. They said that she had run out of ideas and was now just an obsessive, lovesick fool who could no longer write proper suspense thriller novels.

There were even theories about Mindy circulating online, speculating that Mindy had sold off her nom de plume years ago, leaving it to a bunch of untalented ghostwriters instead.