As a novelist, I’m known for my sweeping historical fiction, all of which have been on the New York Times Bestseller List. I’ve been working on my latest hardcover for a year and a half, but I’ve been struggling. You see, all of my best creative energy has been spent thinking of clever retorts to the creeps, perverts, and charm-artists who message me on Tinder.
Perhaps you’re surprised that someone who writes novels is also on Tinder. But if you could see the poetry that spills out of me whenever I open the app, you’d change your tune. How I wish the critics could read my scorching pre-block messages, my to-die-for flirty responses, my genius opening lines. But apparently, you can’t sell your own phone as a book, so I’m stuck writing another dumb novel.
I couldn’t find the words to describe the trip my protagonist of my latest novel takes to the small Mediterranean town her grandmother was raised in. Were the olives she tasted “briny”? “They tasted like salt. The salty flavor danced on her tongue. It was salty.” Utter garbage—you don’t have to tell me. But when a potential suitor said, “Let me eat marshmallow fluff out of your pussy,” the words flowed from my fingertips like blood from a freshly slit wrist: “Fluff off, motherfluffer.” I mean, Christ. My agent would get a hard-on if he saw that in a manuscript. And I’m sure Chet, 31 did too, before I blocked him.
When one especially cute guy opened with, “I want to tongue-fuck your farthole,” the words sprung forth like the wings of a butterfly, fresh from her cocoon: “Go fark yourself.” Meanwhile, the traveler in my novel danced late into the night with a swarthy man, or something. Ugh. It’s trite. It’s hack. It’s no “Fark off.” (Do you see why that’s genius? It’s a combination of “fart” and “fuck”. God, I’m good.)
“Wassup babygirl?” one excuse-for-a-man inquired. “Wassup manchild?” I challenged him. But what did Diane do when she arrived in the coastal Grecian village of Ios? I don’t. Fucking. Know. My genius is on a one-way street to Swipesville.
Another Romeo’s misguided attempt at romance: “I’m a cannibal I guess cuz I wanna eat your pussy,” was expertly shot down with, “How about you eat my shit instead?” Diane went to the convenience store for a Naked Juice three times. I’m drowning here.
The pathetic plea: “Please please have sex with me I am disperate now,” inspired this vivid imagery: “Keep begging like that and soon your manhood will be disparate from your body.” And yet Diane’s been staring at wallpaper all afternoon. The pattern is a metaphor for the way her journey is turning out to be similar to her mother—never mind. It’s so bad.
So my novel might never be finished, and Diane will never learn anything from the stories of the matriarchs who came before her. Whatever. I think my new self-published book More Like Tin-Don’t: Messages from the Dark Side of Dating will probably outsell any literary fiction I could produce anyway. I guess I’ll just have to meet-cute my soulmate in the gifts section of an Urban Outfitters. So be it.
