I would like to go on record and state clearly the reason why I started “Communal Shower Thoughts.”
It was not to one-up my friend who started his column a couple of weeks prior — it was because my creative writing professor said college was a crucial time for prospective authors to seek publishing opportunities because they’d be a lot harder to come by in adulthood.
Shout out to this professor — I love my platform.
I’ve been writing enough portfolio-building personal narratives that I have decided to give myself a little treat. I’d really like to publish my first romance novel within the next five years, so I thought I could get started developing some characters.
I named my protagonist, Livvy, well over a year ago in a different creative writing class. I think the repeated “V”s are cool and different, the only downside is that now I can’t name my daughter Livvy.
One of my first drafts of this story had Livvy blacked out in a frat basement in the first chapter, but I discarded that version a bit ago. Our girl is better than that.
I think, instead, I’d like to start with Livvy being on her semester abroad. Why not? It’s a good setting for some pretty wild things to happen, as any of my faithful readers would know from some of my own published experiences.
Of course, Livvy would know exactly what she’s doing when she texts Samuel — who goes by Sam, though she refuses to call him that because it has fewer letters than Livvy.
A serial plotter, she would ask if he knew anyone who would go with her to a small island off the coast of Naples. “My parents said if I want to go to a remote island after daylight savings time, it better be with a man who can protect me,” she’d write to him at 1:09 a.m., hoping he thought she was tipsy and not just a scheming psycho.
I haven’t really thought about Livvy’s parents yet, but I don’t think they’d actually say that, although wouldn’t it be clutch if they had? Or, better yet, maybe they could hire an escort to go with her instead?
I think this exchange is a little far-fetched but believable. It’s risky because Samuel could say, “yeah, I know someone,” and that someone could be a total squid. But, I like my (potential) readers too much not to make him say what Livvy hoped: “Do I count?”
Isn’t this fun, guys? Aren’t you dying to know what happens between Livvy and Samuel on the remote island? I have some thoughts that are closed-door enough to publish, I think.
On the other hand, I’m kind of interested now in the prospect of Livvy’s parents hiring her an escort. A team of escorts would also be fun. This is my story, so I can do whatever I want as long as enough people will read it.
What if there were two escorts? Nick and Marcus. Nick is, like, shorter than Marcus but somehow more intimidating. He has a meaner face. To break the ice, of course, when they pick her up in their black Mercedes, and Nick would curtly gruff, “Elivia? Nick.”
You really thought I would name my protagonist just Livvy, or Olivia? Come on now, Livvy is a nickname, and I know too many Olivias. Elivia is fun, and, I don’t know, maybe Livvy’s parents are big fans of Elvis? Or Elvira? Back to the story.
Here, after pages of revolutionarily novel flirty dialogue, I would write something not corny about how Livvy decided just then that she was going to enjoy this vacation. Thanks, mom and dad!
And then, depending on which plot I end up going with, I’d write about 99,500 more words of truly revolutionary in no way, shape or form trite of prose.
Did I say I wanted to write my first romance novel? Scratch that, I want to win awards. It’ll be literary fiction with romantic undertones. There we go. Livvy, you ready to roll?
Sylvie Slotkin is a Medill junior and author of “Communal Shower Thoughts.” She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
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