I still can't quite breathe.

Expand ribcage, wait, contract ribcage. Lather, rinse, repeat as needed.

On second, the lather might pose a problem. Best to probably disregard that bit.

Also, muy congratifications on your much-deserved impending success.

Allyson B_ was born of seafoam after Saturn killed Uranus and flung his genitals into the ocean. Or wait. Maybe that's Venus. Sometimes, online, it is hard to know who is who. Allyson B_ might be the girl from South Boston (Southie represent, yo!), and surrounding towns, who fell in love with a TV show, and was lured out west by axe murderers she met on the internet. She loaded up the truck and she drove to Beverly...Hills, that is. Okay, actually? West Hollywood.

Like many big internet plans, axe murdering Allyson fell through. We like to talk big, vampire slayer fans do. 'I'm going to get axe murdered, and then sold in to sexual slavery'! It's just fandom talk.

People took Allyson in, gave her a place to stay, and an occasional cheeseburger, so she didn't starve to death. She got a job at big gov't. agency, and is on her way to ruling the world. She now regularly makes her rent and car payments, and everything.

By day, Allyson is a scientist wrangler, working for The Man. By night, she is a fandom wrangler, working for free.

I also feel the phrase "East coast, West coast, and worldwide" should be in there somewhere.

Also the nephew.

Drabble:

Peer pressure was the driving force that kept my grandfather playing golf long after he stopped enjoying it, and the summer I was twelve he decided that I should suffer too. We spent hours at the driving range, whacking bucket after bucket of red-striped balls--hooking left, slicing right, and occasionally hitting straight ahead, always stopping to puzzle over which imagined cause led to what observed effect.

The pay-off came when he finally took me out on the golf course itself. He grumbled and swore his way around nine holes, and I got to drive the cart for three hours.

thinking novel, short story, any genre in particular

I'm thinking of a Quest in the least romantic setting possible, a corporate cubefarm. This notion is obviously designed to preemptively repel all buyers.

Allyson, make other people write your bio. In fact, use the one Cindy wrote, because it is brilliant. And congrats on the agent contacting you!

Cindy, the next time I have to supply a bio for anything, I'm going to beg you to write it for me, okay?

Wrod. and Gus, no more than mine!

Allyson should get bucks for her words. She needs bucks. We need words.

erikaj, I confess skipping. What is the shape of your unmercantile offering?

It will be a detective story...defective detective style, doubtless not to sell for lack of serial killers, miraculous recoveries, or twenty-two year-old nubile Quantico graduates with sapphire eyes.She does have a rather troubled past, so that might help, as might being patterned slightly after Ms. BNF herself, our Allyson. Because I got some grief one day, and punked out on it and afterward, I thought, "if I were like Allyson, I bet nobody would have said that. Not twice, anyway." So that's her name. Bet y'all didn't know Mary Sue is a profiler.