Cutting Room Floor

I’m finally coming up for air after completing a rewrite of a rewrite ad infinitum of my humorous speculative fiction novel.

ARTIFICIAL is about an ambitious mom and overachieving daughter striving for perfection and elite college admittance who find themselves on a collision course with A.I. superintelligence and its malicious creator.

In the last two years I have stripped out a subplot and this recent edit eliminated 14,000 words based on advice from my agent to eliminate EVERYTHING that did not move the plot along at a quick pace.

It’s often said writers fall in love with our words, because it’s true. We can’t be faulted when every word, big or small, is scrutinized and agonized over. While I’m working on my novel, I let all tasks but the bare minimum for survival slide, including my bi-weekly post. The thought occurred to me that I could share some passages “from the cutting room floor,” to give a sneak peek of my novel.

The PROLOGUE was eliminated but it gives an idea of tone and it came to me almost immediately after conceiving of the book. I am a fan of prologues, but there tends to be debate about them, and sometimes outright disdain in the literary world. It was an easy target for deletion.

ARITIFICIAL: A NOVEL

PROLOGUE

I was already late. Jack’s right. I’m too distracted to be a criminal. Don't judge—I’m not the first person to do crazy shit for my child. One friend of mine filed a patent in her son’s name to fluff up his resume. Another hired a consultant to scrub her daughter’s social media profile and rebrand her as a “friend-of-the-earth.” Then there’s the whole college admissions scandal—that’s not me. But a little breaking and entering? My life’s work is on the line. Every second of every day since I birthed her epidural-free—the money, the hours, my marriage—I sacrificed on the altar of her success.

I steadied the kayak and paddled slowly toward the shore. The lake was glass under a crescent moon and blanket of stars. When we were still married, Frank used to show me how to find the North Star, holding hands around the campfire or sitting on our backyard deck. I could find the Big Dipper—that part was easy—but the North Star is a tiny dot, same as all the other tiny dots. Shouldn’t it be giant, like the Star of Bethlehem? Frank found it thrilling, I found it disappointing. He insisted I know, in case of an emergency. Did he think I would be a fugitive? I don’t even jaywalk. Frank would tease me about my rigid rule following. That’s when he loved me.

Was he looking at this starry night with his new young wife? Does he show her the North Star? As I floated along on the still lake, the searing pain I used to feel registered as a dull ache in my chest. No one marries expecting divorce, but it wasn’t supposed to happen to me.

I recognized their dock by the giant Alexander Calder sculpture on the lawn and the two-hundred-foot yacht. It’s convenient to have moorage in your backyard. Mine features a rotting picnic table and dandelion infested grass. I paddled around the boat. The dock was high, about three feet above the water. Frank and I used to kayak all summer, and he always helped me get out without capsizing. I reviewed a YouTube video for high dock disembarking. The guy simply stood up. I paddled to the ladder, rope in one hand and grabbed for the crossbar with the other. As I pulled at the ladder, the kayak started moving away from the dock with the current, taking my body with it. Stretched precariously over the water, I pulled as hard as I could to get the kayak up against the ladder, tied it up and carefully stood.

The dock shifted and groaned as I climbed up onto the deck. I flashed my headlamp toward the house to find the path, then extinguished the light and tiptoed toward the giant sloping lawn. Jack had instructed me to enter at the wing on the south side of the main house near a twenty-foot hedge. I made my way along the edge. He had told me precisely where to creep to avoid cameras. I approached the back door and found the panel. I switched on my headlamp and hit the code to open the door—it clicked. I took a deep breath, the minute the door broke the plane, the alarm would go off and I would need to disarm it before anyone noticed. I pushed the door open. The whonk, whonk of an alarm sounded. With shaking hands, I punched in a code to disable it.

Whonk, whonk. “Shit.”

Police with guns drawn flashed through my mind. Focus. Don’t screw up. My fingers felt like sausages, but I hit the keys again.

Silence. Blessed silence. I leaned against the wall to catch my breath and get my bearings. Dim floor lights allowed for just enough visibility. I switched off my miner’s lamp and tiptoed toward her bedroom. Fugh! My sneakers were squeaking. I leaned on the wall and pulled them off. Holding them in one hand, I entered her private sitting room. A massive wall TV hung on one end in front of a large plush sectional so luxurious it begged to be rolled around on. I ran my hand over the velvety fabric. Her personal TV room was bigger than my whole damn house.

The interior door to her bedroom was wide open. Show time. I peeked in. Since when did teen girls have bedrooms that looked like the Ritz Carlton? I looked around. Her room was empty. Shit. Where was she?

I heard a low whirring sound coming from behind a closet door next to her dresser. I turned the knob and gently pushed it open. There she was, sound asleep on a hospital bed surrounded by various machines and monitors. What was wrong with this poor girl? As I got closer, the horror of what I was seeing registered. I felt myself crumple to the floor as everything went black.