100TWC - Day 1: Introductions

"Hello. I'm Nigel."
"Steven."
"Good to meet you."
"Is it?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Is it? Is it good to meet me?"
"Well... yes. It's always good to meet new people. Isn't it."
"Not in my experience. Not always."
"Well no, I suppose not. But you can't go around introducing yourself with 'Hi, I'm Steven. Dreadful to meet you' - can you?"
"More's the pity."
"And anyway, you don't know, do you, at the beginning, whether it's going to be good or not-"
"I'm beginning to get an idea."
"-so it's better to err on the side of expecting it to be good and then revising your opinion down later-"
"In the light of evidence."
"Exactly - rather than starting off thinking the worst, by which time it'll be too late to feel better about the encounter."
"Because you'll have pissed the person off so much they'll have left?"
"Well, I, I don't know about that. I don't usually give up that easily."
"So I've noticed."
"I like to give everyone a fair chance-"
"Big of you."
"-often people are a bit uptight meeting someone new. It's a British thing. Supposed to be. Although I'm British, and-"
"You're not."
"No, I am. My parents-"
"No, I mean, you're not uptight. Obviously."
"Oh! No. I mean yes. I'm not."
"So, how do you know her. Are you a writer too?"
"Me? No! Well, not professionally. I dabble. The odd poem for someone who's leaving from the office, that kind of thing."
"What do you do? In that office?"
"Sales. Telephone sales."
"Ah."
"Don't get the wrong idea! We don't do cold calling."
"Glad to hear it. I might have had to kill you."
"Ha! No. No, we met when she was just starting out. Well, I say met. We were both writing for the same firm, but it was all online. This is the first time I've actually seen her in the flesh."
"So you are a writer? The sales is just a day job."
"Yes, but-"
"No buts. Do you write?"
"Well, yes. But-"
"No buts! If you write, you're a writer."
"You must be a writer too then. Only other writers talk like that. Or..."
"Or?"
"You could be a coach. Tutor. Mentor. That kind of thing. Woo-woo happiness guru, helping people get in touch with their inner genius."
"Woo-woo?"
"You know. Mystical magical shit. Meaningless meanderings to mess with your mentality."
"Alliteration's bad form for a writer."
"I'm not writing at the moment."
"Had a bad experience with mentors?"
"Not especially."
"But not good."
"No."
"Probably haven't found the right one."
"You're sounding more like a writing coach every minute. What do you do?"
"I attend a lot of book launches."
"No, come on. Seriously."
"I'm her agent."
"Aaah!"
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't say what you were going to say. Ask what you were going to ask."
"How do you know what I was going to say."
"I'm psychic."
"Rubbish!"
"Well, OK. Not psychic. But I may as well be. You get enough experience-"
"So what was I going to say?"
"You were going to ask if I could take a look at your manuscript. You've been writing it for years. No-one has ever read it, not even your wife. Not even your closest friend. It's a masterpiece. It's what the publishing world has been waiting for. You're a genius. All it takes is for someone - some ONE person - to believe in you. Give you the break you've always dreamed of. Everything else will follow. Chat shows. Movie rights. You'll be set up for life and the whole world will buy your book and wonder at the awesome prose, the deep insights, the almost biblical

[ These two characters meet again at the very end of the writing challenge - on Day 100 in "Endings." ]