Giving Up - or not?

Hey People!

I'm Arushi, a fifteen year old, who loves reading and writing. I post weekly in this blog with short, whack-y stories. I was trying to reduce my word count on this story. Please do read this story and leave your suggestions in the comment section below. 

Enjoy :) 

Giving Up Or Not. 

With paper and pen in his hands, and hundreds of crumpled papers strewn around, frustrated Ravi was found sound asleep on his desk. Supposedly dreaming away merrily of princes and their princesses, Adventurous lads and vain ladies, until our writer was rudely awakened from this trance.

Rubbing his eyes, he saw that the rude inconsiderate person was actually his house maid who had come to clean the study. He hastily got up, brushed and got dressed. It was 9:23, and he had to meet  the with a publishing house in the other end of the town at 10.

He grabbed his scripts, took out the folder and sources and  searched for the car keys. He took out his Rusty car and tried to speed through the busy streets of Bombay. He reached his destination 5 mins late, but finding a parking spot and climbing the monstrous 340 steps, to the floor of the conference room made him really late. So much for a first impression.

After a few pleasantries, he showed his proposed novel to the large group of editors. As they read through, or pretended to, they had expression-less faces on. Ravi got more anxious by the moment. As he pitched his story idea, he started fumbling, becoming even more meek by seeing the faces of the jury. With no comments, but a smug smile on their faces, they dismissed Ravi. He was to be notified of the outcome via email the next week.

Dissatisfied, Ravi left the room, leaving his hard-work, aka scripts, behind. This was his last hope. To pursue his passion of writing he had defied his family, lived alone and was on the verge of bankruptcy. With no longer the shadow of a stable job, Ravi felt very vulnerable, and had channelized his last bit of energy into the book. A successful launch of the book, could bring him fame, money and even win the hearts of his people.

Weeks later, Ravi received a mail:

Ravi, 

With regrets we must inform you that your story just lacks a strong plot or essence of a great novel. For those reasons we can't publish it.

Regrets,

Archit

EDITOR @ ABC publishing house.

Ravi was heart-broken, his dreams shattered. He was just seconds away from swallowing his entire stock of sleeping pills, when the front bell rang. It was his friend, waiting for him to go to the mall. In an act to hide what he was about to do, Ravi answered affirmative and was pushed out of the apartment.

In the mall, Ravi swayed to his favorite place, the bookstore. Though he felt he couldn't bear to look at books ever again, he searched the whole 'new arrival' section for a good read, and this book stood out:

Face Love as you face the music.

-Archit Bansal

The only problem was that Ravi's story had a very similar plot, and Archit was an editor at the publishing house. Ravi was dumbfounded. He couldn't react.

After gaining composure, he just bought the book and left. He evaluated his options- Legal Trouble, Silence and Ranting. Legal procedures are long, expensive, and corrupt. Silence was not an option. Seeing his work copied made him furious and more confident. He couldn't bear to see his hard-work go. Suicide is an easy option, not the solution. So, his best bet was posting his dilemma online and hope it gets some momentum.

Later, he posted all this, on social media, and the tweet went viral- Crazy fast. Not only was the production of the book stopped, but due to the bad publicity, the publishing house's business was on the verge of closing. Tremendous support made Ravi take another shot at writing, and half a year later Ravi's second book was published, and it was a great success. And what was it called? Oh well it was called:

Betrayal- A real story.

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