Alan McDermott
I was writing a novel and I got an email from Goodreads asking me a question. I know I turned those question things off a long time ago. There was two reasons for doing so, the first being that very few people have heard of me, and even fewer would be interested in anything going on in my life. The second reason was that it ate into my writing time.
The fact that I was still getting questions thrown at me, not from readers, but from Goodreads—the actual website that knows I don’t want to be answering banal questions—made me realise that it wasn’t going to stop. I’d already turned the feature off, what more could I do?
So I wrote a snarky reply to said question.
Little did I know, but I was about to unleash hell!
One of my very few fans on Goodreads read my answer and thought it hilarious, so they shared it on social media. Within hours it was trending on Facebook and Twitter, with hundreds of thousands of likes. Seems like a good thing, doesn’t it? Lots of exposure, suddenly people know who I am, sales start to increase…
You couldn’t be more wrong.
One of the head honchos at Goodreads sees my reply and realises that they’ve broken some sort of data protection rule, which could prove expensive. So, they sack the person responsible for sending me the question.
That’s where the fun begins.
Her name was Charlotte, and she now has a huge hard on for me. She loved her job, but I brought her whole world crashing down with just a few light-hearted paragraphs. While I’m seeing enough sales in one day to afford that refurbished iPhone I had my eye on, Charlotte is down the Job Centre trying to get her head around a Universal Credit application form.
As she’s filling it out, he hand grips the pen so tightly it rips the paper. She has to queue and ask for another application form, which does her temper no good at all. She’s pissed at me, and while she’s queuing, she gets on her phone and does a search for me. Idiot that I am, I gave my real home town on one of my social media profiles, so she’s narrowed it down already. Being a smart girl, it doesn’t take her long to figure out a plan.
That night, she contacts me on Facebook. She says she’s a big fan and would love to buy a signed copy of one of my books. I say, ‘Sure, great!’ So I get her address and send it to her, putting my return address on the back.
Bingo! Charlotte now knows where I live!
Weeks go by. My sales are back down to almost zilch, the Goodreads things already forgotten by all.
All except Charlotte.
She’s been plotting, planning, wondering how to repay me for my wicked act. Day after day she’s come up with scenarios, each one more brutal than the one before.
Two months after I posted my answer, Charlotte makes up her mind. She goes full-blown bunny-boiler on me. First, it’s scented love letters addressed to me. Then it’s cleverly photoshopped pictures of me with another woman, addressed to the lady of the house.
You can imagine the result. Within days, my wife had moved out, taking the kids with her. I was left in a pit of despair, but Charlotte wasn’t finished yet.
I hit the bottle. Hard. Every day, every night. It got to the stage where I was never sober; I didn’t stop drinking enough to reach any level of sobriety. During this time, I staggered to the local shop in search of more booze, and when I returned home I gave Charlotte the perfect helping hand.
I left the key in the door.
Charlotte had been watching my house for days, waiting for the right moment to strike.
I’d just given her the perfect opportunity.
Charlotte took the key and made a copy first thing the next morning. By the time I stumbled out of bed at lunchtime, she’d put it back in the door where I left it. I found it the next day, on yet another booze run.
Things started to get weird after that. I would wake in the morning to find furniture had been moved around. The sofa was up against the wrong wall. My sideboard was in the hallway. The vacuum cleaner was in the garden!
But the worst part was the notes written in a drunken scrawl. They looked nothing like my handwriting, but then they wouldn’t, would they? They were written by drunken me, not sober me.
Kill yourself!
End it now!
Everybody hates you!
The theme was always the same, and it began to sink in. I would hit the bottle again, staring at the notes, wondering what Drunk Alan knew that Sober Alan didn’t. Your life has turned to shit, that’s what! There’s no point going on!
It wasn’t until three days later that Donny came round. He’s my next door neighbour, and he was worried about me. I told him about the break up, which wasn’t my fault. There was no other woman, I told him.
‘No? Who’s been entering your house for the last few days?’ he asked. ‘Always late, usually after midnight.’
I assured him that he was the first person to visit me in weeks, but he gave me a look that said he found it hard to believe.
Could it be true? Was someone coming into my house when I was wallowing in a drunken sleep? There was only one way to find out.
I stayed off the booze all day, and at ten I turned off all the lights and sat on the bottom step, staring at the front door.
Minutes passed. Hours. Then, the sound of a key being forced slowly into the lock.
I should have a weapon! I chastised myself. You’re an author! You didn’t think to arm yourself?? Would you let one of your characters sit here with nothing but a raging hangover??
It was too late to do anything about it now.
The door creaked open and the first thing I saw was the blade of a knife. It must have been twelve inches long, and was being held by a woman I’d never seen before.
‘We meet at last,’ she said, an evil grin creeping across her face.
‘Who the hell are you?’ I asked, backing up the stairs as she took measured steps towards me.
‘I’m the woman whose life you destroyed.’
‘What?’ I bumbled. ‘How?’
‘The Goodreads question,’ she said. ‘If you’d just ignored it, none of this would have happened. Your wife would still be here. You’d still be writing. But, no, you had to go and mention the fact that you turned the questions off, and it cost me everything!’
Writing! That’s it! I’m the author! I control the characters; they don’t control me!
So I backspaced everything I’d written and looked at the question again:
What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?
I thought about it for a moment, then simply wrote:
None.
The fact that I was still getting questions thrown at me, not from readers, but from Goodreads—the actual website that knows I don’t want to be answering banal questions—made me realise that it wasn’t going to stop. I’d already turned the feature off, what more could I do?
So I wrote a snarky reply to said question.
Little did I know, but I was about to unleash hell!
One of my very few fans on Goodreads read my answer and thought it hilarious, so they shared it on social media. Within hours it was trending on Facebook and Twitter, with hundreds of thousands of likes. Seems like a good thing, doesn’t it? Lots of exposure, suddenly people know who I am, sales start to increase…
You couldn’t be more wrong.
One of the head honchos at Goodreads sees my reply and realises that they’ve broken some sort of data protection rule, which could prove expensive. So, they sack the person responsible for sending me the question.
That’s where the fun begins.
Her name was Charlotte, and she now has a huge hard on for me. She loved her job, but I brought her whole world crashing down with just a few light-hearted paragraphs. While I’m seeing enough sales in one day to afford that refurbished iPhone I had my eye on, Charlotte is down the Job Centre trying to get her head around a Universal Credit application form.
As she’s filling it out, he hand grips the pen so tightly it rips the paper. She has to queue and ask for another application form, which does her temper no good at all. She’s pissed at me, and while she’s queuing, she gets on her phone and does a search for me. Idiot that I am, I gave my real home town on one of my social media profiles, so she’s narrowed it down already. Being a smart girl, it doesn’t take her long to figure out a plan.
That night, she contacts me on Facebook. She says she’s a big fan and would love to buy a signed copy of one of my books. I say, ‘Sure, great!’ So I get her address and send it to her, putting my return address on the back.
Bingo! Charlotte now knows where I live!
Weeks go by. My sales are back down to almost zilch, the Goodreads things already forgotten by all.
All except Charlotte.
She’s been plotting, planning, wondering how to repay me for my wicked act. Day after day she’s come up with scenarios, each one more brutal than the one before.
Two months after I posted my answer, Charlotte makes up her mind. She goes full-blown bunny-boiler on me. First, it’s scented love letters addressed to me. Then it’s cleverly photoshopped pictures of me with another woman, addressed to the lady of the house.
You can imagine the result. Within days, my wife had moved out, taking the kids with her. I was left in a pit of despair, but Charlotte wasn’t finished yet.
I hit the bottle. Hard. Every day, every night. It got to the stage where I was never sober; I didn’t stop drinking enough to reach any level of sobriety. During this time, I staggered to the local shop in search of more booze, and when I returned home I gave Charlotte the perfect helping hand.
I left the key in the door.
Charlotte had been watching my house for days, waiting for the right moment to strike.
I’d just given her the perfect opportunity.
Charlotte took the key and made a copy first thing the next morning. By the time I stumbled out of bed at lunchtime, she’d put it back in the door where I left it. I found it the next day, on yet another booze run.
Things started to get weird after that. I would wake in the morning to find furniture had been moved around. The sofa was up against the wrong wall. My sideboard was in the hallway. The vacuum cleaner was in the garden!
But the worst part was the notes written in a drunken scrawl. They looked nothing like my handwriting, but then they wouldn’t, would they? They were written by drunken me, not sober me.
Kill yourself!
End it now!
Everybody hates you!
The theme was always the same, and it began to sink in. I would hit the bottle again, staring at the notes, wondering what Drunk Alan knew that Sober Alan didn’t. Your life has turned to shit, that’s what! There’s no point going on!
It wasn’t until three days later that Donny came round. He’s my next door neighbour, and he was worried about me. I told him about the break up, which wasn’t my fault. There was no other woman, I told him.
‘No? Who’s been entering your house for the last few days?’ he asked. ‘Always late, usually after midnight.’
I assured him that he was the first person to visit me in weeks, but he gave me a look that said he found it hard to believe.
Could it be true? Was someone coming into my house when I was wallowing in a drunken sleep? There was only one way to find out.
I stayed off the booze all day, and at ten I turned off all the lights and sat on the bottom step, staring at the front door.
Minutes passed. Hours. Then, the sound of a key being forced slowly into the lock.
I should have a weapon! I chastised myself. You’re an author! You didn’t think to arm yourself?? Would you let one of your characters sit here with nothing but a raging hangover??
It was too late to do anything about it now.
The door creaked open and the first thing I saw was the blade of a knife. It must have been twelve inches long, and was being held by a woman I’d never seen before.
‘We meet at last,’ she said, an evil grin creeping across her face.
‘Who the hell are you?’ I asked, backing up the stairs as she took measured steps towards me.
‘I’m the woman whose life you destroyed.’
‘What?’ I bumbled. ‘How?’
‘The Goodreads question,’ she said. ‘If you’d just ignored it, none of this would have happened. Your wife would still be here. You’d still be writing. But, no, you had to go and mention the fact that you turned the questions off, and it cost me everything!’
Writing! That’s it! I’m the author! I control the characters; they don’t control me!
So I backspaced everything I’d written and looked at the question again:
What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?
I thought about it for a moment, then simply wrote:
None.
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