Letters. Or how much can be said with 100 words

Dear P,

Your books are filled with angst and self-pity. It's a shame that it took me three of them to get a clue. Your style is beautiful, hence my perseverance, but frankly, I detest so much angst and torment in novels -I'm way past adolescence, and honestly, you should be too. Anyone should, at our age.

I wonder how you'd do with less sulking and anguish in your stories. Maybe you'd lose some faithful readers, but I'm willing to bet you'd win a dozen for each loss. But it's your choice, of course.

Don't sweat this too much,

E

W,

Let me get this off my chest: Your blog sucks, big time. I wouldn't bother telling you, except that I'm fed up with you priding yourself on your writing prowess. Well, honey, if you don't get down from your pedestal, I'll just go and push you off it.

Your writing is mediocre at best. And your topics, they just about kill me, so very infantile, so bordering on the Disney drama, so totally immature.

I'm just one reader so by all means feel free to flush this ranting letter down the toilet as speedily as I wrote it.

E

Ms D,

You're beautiful, sophisticated, elegant. You carry yourself with that air of superiority and detachment so typical of celebrities. You have that self-sufficient and condescending air only people with real power seem to possess. You're admired and envied because you seem to have it all.

But you have the saddest eyes, the emptiest smile. And your words sound so practiced, so insincere. You seem to have it all, except a soul. Your image in the screen is the only evidence that you exist, the only thing that stands between you and a big empty void.

What a pity.

E

Dear R,

I really loved your stuff, you know. But you had to go and change completely, radically, and I never again found the joy I used to find with you. I forgive you, though (yeah, so grand of me!), because I think you simply changed with the times. Still. You went from so rocking my world to not even relating to it that it feels disappointing.

To rid myself of my likely unfair and definitely selfish feelings, I go back to your earlier works and relive the joy that apparently will never be there again.

An old friend,

E

AC

You little shit. The only thing you ever wrote to me that I didn't have to wonder about was a birthday card. I can't imagine how you got to be where you are now. Wait, of course I can. You play the political game better than anybody, ever. You're a genius when it comes to telling everyone (that counts) what they want to hear. The problem here is that everyone that counts for you is nowhere near what counts for me. Did friendship or loyalty ever count for anything in your book?

Have it your way. So long,

E

TJ,

I can't forget you, can't get over you. Evidently, the more I try to take you off my mind, the more you linger there. Truth be told, I like you sticking around, I like daydreaming about you, even though I know it's unhealthy.

I guess that's why sometimes I try to hate you, try to dislike you, but we both know it's just for show, a childish tantrum to give me some relief, blow off some steam. Beats me why I keep at it, it never really brought me any peace of mind.

I just can't help it.

E

Dear F,

At first I didn't know what hit me. I was knocked flat on my ass but didn't fully understand it. Then I realized that it was a combination of mystery and secrets, beauty and charm, intelligence and wit.

I also realized, with no little amount of chagrin, that I was just one among the throngs of readers hit by the whirlwind that is you. Made sense, though. I, for one, love the feeling of being absolutely powerless to resist you.

What secrets are you still keeping? What fortunes do you harbor? Can I expect more stolen moments?

E

Hey you!

You're so incredibly hot. I can't put my finger on why I find you so damn irresistible. In truth, I don't think there's one reason alone, more a combination of greener than green eyes, intelligence, elegance, and a speech that thoroughly melts me.

Do we ever really know why we're drawn to someone? Why you and not another? Maybe it's because I can't reach you, no matter how hard I try. Yes, maybe that's what makes you so damn hot. Reciprocity is not all that it's cracked up to be, not when you're living a daydream.

Cheerily,

E

Greetings, F!

I wonder where you've been all my life. Clichés aside, really, where have you been all my life? I never before knew euphoria like the one I've experienced reading you. You've completely, thoroughly spoiled me for any other type of fiction. With hindsight, I think I kept looking for what I found with your stories in every book I ever read, although I didn't know it at the time. Finding you is the best that ever happened to me. On the downside, I'm challenged to get it up for anything else I read now. Ah well.

Charmed,

E

Dear K,

I used to wait with indescribable anticipation for your books to come out, to get my hands in anything you wrote. So long to those sweet days gone by. I have all the respect for all the ground you broke, and I will always have you in a special place in my heart -and my shelves, I think I've more titles by you than any other writer. But I guess tastes develop and readers grow up. Believe me, you haven't done anything wrong, it's all me. I simply can't love you like I used to.

Very fondly,

E

Hey you, M!

Thanks for making me pee my pants from laughing so hard. Thanks for being politically incorrect in a way that makes me want to scream FUCK YES. Thanks for telling it like it is and for not caring shit about what "they" will think. Thanks for acting like you're a regular chick, which you are, but I appreciate that you act like you really believe it. And did I say thanks for making me laugh like a maniac?

Oh, and THANKS for allowing your big boobs to appear on the back cover of you book!

Cheekily,

E

V, honey, you've got to be kidding me. That, or you're shamelessly kidding yourself, if you think you stand a chance with that punk of a story. I know you're mad at me for telling you this, but damn, what are friends for? Would you rather I lie and lead you to believe you've got a best seller in your hands? Come on, you know I've a good eye for what goes, and I'm telling you, this story won't, shouldn't, be published. Deep down you know I'm right, even if now you're totally pissed off.

Go on, rewrite it.

E

Dear G,

I'll say, you're above average when it comes to this world of novellas and quick reads. Maybe your books aren't the very best under the sun, but I'll grant you, you do have more depth and variety and character development than our average lesfic read.

You have this one particularly wonderful book, you know which one I mean, and that one is really outstanding, one of my favorites in the whole genre. Anyway, just to let you know you do fare better in my list than many of those so-called best sellers in the genre.

Well done,

E

Dear S,

One book. You got me with just that one book. The thing is, you didn't get me as much for the book as for your humanness to talk to me about it. Silly as it can get, I know. But still, you showed a consideration for this reader that doesn't come by every day. But anyway, I loved the book and I suppose that's what brought on all the rest.

I wish you the best of luck with your writing enterprise. I'll wait for a second book hoping that it gets me in the same way.

Truly,

E

Dearest J,

You're still my favorite of all unpublished authors in the whole wide world. At least I think you are unpublished as of today, which is a total shame. The published crap I've read, you wouldn't believe. Actually, you probably would. But I digress. What I meant to tell you is that I've found very little in the way of reading that gives me as much joy as what you write. You're pure wit, chica, and your command of the written word never ceases to amaze me. And you're sexy to boot, too.

I so adore you. Always,

E

Dear B,

I have big hopes of having made a friend for life. I can't wait to read your next book. I don't remember how I stumbled upon your first published title, but I'm so glad that I did. I'm also glad that I always keep trying out new authors in hopes to find that elusive hidden jewel that'll make me happy. Your book was that kind of jewel, and I want to sincerely thank you for that.

We live in separate universes, but I understand yours better thanks to you caring way to tell me about it.

Sincerely,

E

Dear J,

You've got a magnificent gift to tell stories about plain, ordinary people with plain, ordinary lives, in a way that makes their plainness interesting, witty and simply adorable. Adorable and ever so realistic that it's sometimes painful, but always enlightening. You bring out the best in all this earth's creatures, especially their will to live the life they chose against all odds. To top that off, you always without exception humor your stories and make me laugh (out loud, quite often) and I can't thank you enough for that. You bring on a hope that's priceless.

Truly,

E