I’m considering opening an anonymous Google form (no contact info or names!!) where anyone can send in life dilemmas... love, grief, creative blocks...etc. Once a week, l'll write an article based on one of them on Substack.
Would you contribute to something like that?
#booksky #readingcommunity
![First page and comps from GOOD BOYS ONLY. Comp titles include Well, Actually by Mazey Eddings, You, With a View by Jessica Joyce, The Re-Do List by Denise Williams, Young & Hungry TV show. Sample text: Much like my life, my apartment is going up in smoke.
I choke on the black cloud billowing from the oven. My gourmet dino nuggets have turned to fossils. “Oh, fuck me,” I groan.
Lava-like heat bites through my oven mitt, and I drop the sheet pan on the stovetop. Shrill barks echo in tandem with the smoke alarm that’s now going off, piercing my ears like it’s in surround sound, live from Hell. Lovely.
“Piper, Phoebe, get back! I’m trying to save you.” I shoo the orange Pomeranians away from the radiating heat. Dog sitting was supposed to be an easy way to get out of this shithole apartment, not burn it down. Even if I dream about lighting it up most days.
But the aggressive “Past Due” rent letter taped to my door this morning is on the counter, taunting me, like some sick adult version of a haunted house. “Thanks, Devin,” I spit into the ether, as if he can hear me from Chicago. And a big thanks to me, too, for treating my credit cards like Monopoly money.
Flicking on the exhaust fan to clear my galley kitchen, I take a misguided deep breath, and the cremated dinosaurs send me into another coughing fit. In a fight for my life, I snag my Getting Figgy With It towel off of the oven door and wave it pathetically below the alarm.
After a couple of minutes and more pathetic towel waving, the fog clears and the chirping stops. But the dogs are still barking. Though, to be fair, I don’t think they’ve stopped barking all weekend.
While fishing out the scraps of remaining treats from the girls’ travel bag, they hit my calves like starving, vicious dust bunnies. I blew through their supply in an attempt to Pavlov them into loving me. All it did was condition them to misbehave and still demand treats. [sample continues]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xrnw5sea7coaxzrmdmfyytg2/bafkreifflksbgcbv6yde66pu23vts5nxvxmpogrfkxyrhb5ffdilt3q7zu)
