My Wild Elevator Ride: Why I shouldn’t talk about what I write to strangers by Jina Bacarr

I’m in mad, crazy writer mode.

Which means I’m stuck in a riptide… writing, editing, writing… talking to my characters when I race out to the market and I’m grabbing fresh veggies, oatmeal cookies, and Amy’s frozen enchiladas. Talk to me! I beg my heroines, why did you do that? How am I going to get you out of this mess?

It’s like wrestling an alligator.

Yes, I have a book deadline, so in the interest of providing a fun blog for A Slice of Orange this month, I’m posting a short story I wrote a while ago about what happens when writers can’t help themselves and talk about what we do. So here goes… grab the coffee and oatmeal cookies and enjoy!

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Writers get lonely. We need to socialize, talk. Discover there is a world out there beyond our computers. So I came up with this fun author-character and what happens when she goes out into the world and goes on a wild elevator ride with a stranger…

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My Wild Elevator Ride

I work in a cubicle surrounded by books, computers, and ideas.

I get lonely.

Very lonely. Hey, a girl can only fantasize so much about meeting a sexy guy who’ll knock her bunny slippers off. (I don’t wear shoes when I’m writing.)

So when I go out, which isn’t often when you’re trying to promote your work online and get through the quagmire of finishing your latest novel, I get talkative.

Very talkative.

When my inner goddess gets her gab on, I can’t stop her. My therapist says it’s repressed speech syndrome ad finitum. Or something like that.

Anyway, I got in over my head at a recent gig when I walked into the elevator in my hotel. I was in town to speak at a writer’s group which always makes me a nervous wreck. I was going through my usual ritual to calm my nerves. A six-pack of diet soda and dark chocolate.

The only problem was, the soda was warm.

I like ice. Cold, numbing ice. Makes me forget I have to face a room of creative ladies who are way more talented than I am, but for some reason they think I’m cool. I just got lucky, I tell them, but the truth is, I earned my stripes. Writing, getting rejections for years, and working my butt off. I’m grateful to be where I am.

So what I didn’t need was a guy chatting me up about his hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year sales job and his black BMW. Nice enough, but I wasn’t looking for anything more than an ice machine that worked.

The one on my floor was broken.

Now I was stuck in an elevator with a sales guy who had obviously removed the wedding band from his left hand. His tan line blinked at me like a neon sign. Come on in, it seemed to say, the water’s fine.

I don’t swim with the sharks. [author note: just alligators…]

‘You don’t want to drink alone,’ he said, observing my ice bucket filled with chilled cubes.

‘I have my laptop for company.’ I smiled. “Besides, I have work to do.’

‘Are you here with the software convention?’ he asked warily.

‘Well…’ I wasn’t, but I decided to play along.

‘No way…a pretty girl like you can’t be a techie.’

‘Why not?’ I shot back, perturbed. I hated guys who put down a girl’s ambition. ‘Can’t women use their brains to get ahead?’

‘Not when they have natural attributes…’ He eyed my chest. Mind you, I was wearing navy blue sweats and my pink bunny slippers with floppy ears. This guy was either desperate or he’d been on the road too long.

‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ I said, ‘but I’m a writer.’

‘You’re kidding?’ He seemed genuinely surprised, which didn’t help my ego. ‘What do you write?’

Ooh...I couldn’t resist shooting him the punchline.

‘I write sexy novels.’

‘Well, you are full of surprises,’ he said, edging closer to me. ‘We should get to know each other better.’

The air in the elevator suddenly got stuffier and I prayed my deodorant didn’t work so he’d get the message. So far, no one else had gotten on the elevator and I had two more stops before we got to my floor.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.” I wiggled the ears on my rabbit slippers, hoping to shoot down this guy’s sex-o-meter. That should have stopped him right there.

It didn’t.

‘How about a nightcap in my room? My bottle of bourbon and your—’ He paused, wetting his lips. ‘Ice cubes.’

‘You mean do research for my books?’

‘Oh, yeah…’

‘I bet,’ I said.

I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, but sometimes we writers just ache to act like our heroines and throw back those snappy remarks. I tried to discourage him, but when he started breathing in my face, I knew I was in over my head. I did what any romance heroine would do.

I dumped the bucket of melting ice on his pinstripe suit.

‘Hey, what the—’ he called out and thank God, the elevator door opened. It wasn’t my floor, but I didn’t care. One more minute with Mr. BMW and I would have ended up served on a chilled platter.

Before he could brush the ice off his shoulders, out I ran. Down the long corridor and then I jammed down the stairway to the next floor to my room.

I never looked back.

I spent the rest of the night drinking warm soda and giggling as I wrote this guy into my story. I bet he won’t forget me either.

I imagine that was the last time he tried to pick up a girl in an elevator wearing pink bunny slippers.

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My latest 2 book series about PARIS WW2:

2 sisters at war with the Nazis… and each other 

KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/sisters-at-war-2  

from BoldwoodBooks

In my story Justine is the victim of sexual assault by the SS. ‘Sisters at War’ explores wartime sexual assault and how it affects the lives of Justine and Eve Beaufort in Wartime Paris.

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I drew on my own experiences when I started a series of historical novels set in Wartime Paris about the brave women who fought in the French Resistance.

An actress, a parfumier, a Philly debutante and my 2-book Wartime Paris Sisters series SISTERS AT WAR and SISTERS OF THE RESISTANCE.

Sisters At War: Amazon

US https://a.co/d/eZ25gZb      

UK https://amzn.eu/d/0LEWy2z

Who are the Beaufort Sisters?

They’re beautiful

They’re smart.

They’re dangerous.

They’re at war with the Nazis… and each other.