Any likeness to persons living or dead is for purposes of amusement only. The author in no way condones the actions of the characters in his story. No authors were harmed, much, in the writing of this story.
IF YOU WANT AN INTERESTING TITLE TO A STORY WRITTEN BY A WOMAN WITH AN EXOTIC SOUNDING NAME, THIS IS FOR YOU
BY MARIA-TERESA FERNANDEZ-FILAMON, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY SALVADORE DE LA MONTANA VERDE
OR
By Neil Ayres
My name is Mitch Cheatem and I am a professional plagiarist. I work freelance, in partnership with my sister, Natasha, who is a hit-woman. We operate under the guise of a fake literary agency. When we receive a suitable manuscript, I despatch it to an appropriate publishing house and Natasha despatches the author. Natashas favoured method of damming the creative juices and releasing the biological ones is a fountain pen nib to the neck.
As well as her assassination assignations, my sister runs the other side of our business, the modelling agency. The major publishing companies get a steady flow of quality fictitious fodder, from political puzzlers to historical heartbreakers, and we get the author royalties and 15% agency fees for supplying them with photogenic young things to pose as the penists. Since the original writers are now, due to Natasha's ministrations, ghost ones who don't photograph well.
We have been operating in this way now for close to twelve years, and have long since reached the point where early retirement is possible, but my sister takes great satisfaction in her work, and though I tire of the constant conversations with trustafarian editorial assistants and lunches with alcoholic editors, and of writing rejection letters to Mrs Deadwood*, love for my sibling keeps me toiling.
Empathic as she is, I think Natasha is aware of my work weariness. Lately she has been helping more with the administration and communication with our clients, and insists she is ready to take full responsibility for a contract. Im not so sure.
Still, with her bearing a share of my workload, Ive had more time for my primary passion: writing. Ive just completed my first novel and have also decided to start keeping this diary. I must go now, its getting dark and my sister is calling me. I think she wants her pen back for something.
..
* Mrs Stephanie Deadwood is an elderly lady, who has been sending us her allegedly humorous novels almost since we established the business, but not everyone has the capacity to be a successful author, and her writing will never cut the proverbial mustard with any editor worth his or her salt.