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"  After all the drama with Jen, I needed a break from my friends. To be honest with you, I was pretty irritated with Ashley. The thing about Ashley is that she&amp;#039;s like a pitbull\u2014once she&amp;#039;s sunk her teeth into something, she refuses to let go of it until she makes you see her point. It&amp;#039;s an admirable trait sometimes, but not so much when you don&amp;#039;t agree with her and she pushes and pushes until you do.  I threw myself into work\u2014my boss wants one of the characters in his next book to be a sociopath, so he was having me read this psychological profile of Scott Peterson and write a report for him. By the time I was finished with it, it was practically as thick as the actual book. &amp;quot;Thanks,&amp;quot; Bill said as I handed it to him. &amp;quot;This shouldn&amp;#039;t take me more than a week to read.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Oh stop, it&amp;#039;s bulleted and double spaced,&amp;quot; I said. Bill leaned back in his chair and took his reading glasses off. &amp;quot;So how&amp;#039;s your writing coming along?&amp;quot; he asked.  &amp;quot;Oh that? It&amp;#039;s not.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;And why is that?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;I guess I&amp;#039;m just waiting for that\u2026lightbulb to go off. That one great idea, and then I naively think it will just flow out of me.&amp;quot;  Bill smiled. &amp;quot;It doesn&amp;#039;t work like that.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Then how does it work?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Well, for one, you can&amp;#039;t be so precious about it. Even if you write something and it&amp;#039;s crap, it&amp;#039;s getting you in the habit of writing. That&amp;#039;s valuable in its own right.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s something I never thought of,&amp;quot; I said.  &amp;quot;Well, listen, the reason I brought this up is because a publisher friend emailed me, asking if I knew any young writers who might be interested in ghost writing a young adult novel.&amp;quot;  My eyes lit up like Christmas lights. &amp;quot;I would! I would be interested!&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;But here&amp;#039;s the thing,&amp;quot; Bill said. &amp;quot;Your name wouldn&amp;#039;t appear on it, and it&amp;#039;s not your idea. They come up with that, and you just execute it. It also doesn&amp;#039;t pay well.&amp;quot;  Honestly, getting paid to write seemed like such an unattainable dream to me that it hadn&amp;#039;t even crossed my mind. &amp;quot;How much?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;That you would have to discuss with them&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;But ballpark.&amp;quot;  Bill furrowed his brow and thought. &amp;quot;Three thousand?&amp;quot;  I nearly keeled over. I&amp;#039;m rich, bitch! &amp;quot;This is incredible,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;How do I do this? I want this.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Listen,&amp;quot; Bill said. &amp;quot;I was hesitant to even tell you this.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Why?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Because you will have to dumb down your writing for this. It&amp;#039;s a young adult novel\u2014the plot will be something ludicrously trivial.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;But it makes me a published author,&amp;quot; I protested. I couldn&amp;#039;t believe he was discouraging me.  &amp;quot;But maybe not the kind of published author you want to be.&amp;quot; Bill said. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m just trying to give you the cons here. If you do a good job and it becomes a hit, it could also open a lot of doors. Realistically, I don&amp;#039;t think that will happen, but it&amp;#039;s completely up to you.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Well, I want it,&amp;quot; I said, without a moment&amp;#039;s hesitation.  &amp;quot;Okay,&amp;quot; Bill said. &amp;quot;They need a writing sample by next week. I&amp;#039;ll forward you the details.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Are they considering other writers for this?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;They are, so make it good,&amp;quot; Bill gave me a wink. A non-sexual one, obviously.  I am bursting at the seams\u2014I know that Bill isn&amp;#039;t totally sold on this idea of manufactured writing. It&amp;#039;s kind of like being a member of a boy band circa 1996 or something\u2014yeah, those guys sang and danced, but they weren&amp;#039;t really making music. At least not the way someone like Mick Jagger made music. But Justin Timberlake moved on to bigger, better things after &amp;#039;N Sync (plus &amp;#039;N Sync is still awesome in my book), so who&amp;#039;s to say the same couldn&amp;#039;t happen for me?  Have you ever made a career move that people in your life didn&amp;#039;t totally support? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a10336/j-bedroom-blog-opportunity-of-a-lifetime/>