The email arrived Wednesday morning. I was in one of those fragile creative moods where every unfinished project seemed to pile up around my desk like creditors. I was checking the sales figures for my memories, Easy Street: Mysel’s Rescue Storyfbecause I am a person who can write openly spiritual like a lab rat hitting a pellet dispenser while personally updating BookScan in growth.
I was about to pitch a new book to publishers, and suddenly every number attached to my previous work seemed to make sense. Have I sold enough? Did the job land somewhere in person, or was I mostly talking about a space with good lighting and an advertising plan?
Easy street among other things, the story of how I became the legal guardian of my previously unmarried husband neurodiversity A woman named Joanna was in love with my husband. I usually describe it as a dark buddy comedy about two middle-aged women with psychological problems and unstructured days. At first, Joanna and I seemed completely different. I’m socially polished, I’d like to agree. Joanna moved around the world with almost no protective covering.
Over time, the qualities that bothered me eventually revealed how much I had personality was built around approval, authority, etc management other people’s imaginations. So maybe I should have been more prepared for what happened next.
The email was from a woman named Susan Jordan. Her profile sketch shows an African-American woman with large, brooding eyes and a gentle half-smile. Even in miniature, he looked warm and lively, like someone who sensed things. And according to the email, he noticed my book.
Not sure. In particular.
He wrote about the “contradiction between outer success and inner struggle.” He described his relationship with Joanna as “layered”. a jokediscomfort, weakness and growth. He appreciated the tonal balance between comedy and emotional honesty. Most impressively, he realized that the book was not really about redemption in the triumphant cinematic sense, but about the abusive, ongoing process of being abusive.
In other words, he got it. Or at least it appeared.
The praise went through me like electrolytes. Within a few hours, my attitude towards life changed significantly. I felt more optimisticmore energy, ready to tackle challenging writing projects. Nothing has changed, but psychologically everything has changed. The future seemed to open up a bit.
Soon after, Susan and I began corresponding. She told me she had posted her review on Goodreads, and it was the kind of review every writer would think of. Not generic praise, but a real connection to the emotional architecture of the book. He understood Joanna not only as an eccentric supporting character, but as a catalyst for change. He understood that the central tension of the memoir was the arduous effort to maintain a socially acceptable self.
At one point I referred to the Bhagavad Gita line “you have a right to your actions, but not the fruits of your actions.” Susan responded with a fragment Tao Te Ching about letting go of expectations for results.
Susan didn’t just flatter my work. He reflected my worldview. Now I see that “Susan’s” personality is partly gleaned from my public writing, that emails are emotionally accurate because they are shaped by my language patterns and training. I was pervertedly tempted.
In the end, Susan said, she worked with a company that helped promote meaningful books, especially books that needed updating. attention years after publication. It incorporated Goodreads discovery, memoir reader communities, and voice-controlled bidding. marketingcapitalizing on self-discovery, mental health and themes person. The suggestion landed with surgical precision on the exact psychological pain points I’d been nursing for months.
The price was $430 and I was willing to pay it.
Then something stopped inside me. I asked if we could do a Zoom call first and “Susan” agreed. Zoom started with the same thumbnail photo from the emails, but the voice was male. Not just a man, but I’ve been completely cut off from the reflective literary feeling I’ve been writing for days.
Finally, I stopped.
“Wait,” I said. “Is that Susan?”
There was a pause.
“No, it’s Susan’s assistant. Susan is late. She’ll be leaving now.”
“Why don’t you let me know when it’s ready,” I said, “and I’ll log back in.”
A few minutes later, another email arrived, apologizing for the confusion and asking if I could talk now. We’re back to Zoom. The same frozen sketch remained in the corner of the screen, but now the voice was female. Only this voice did not belong to the word reader.
I asked him if I could turn on the camera.
“No, I can’t right now.”
“Why not?”
“I’m home.”
There was a long, strange silence, during which reality slowly faded away fantasy. Why couldn’t he turn on his camera when he was at home?
And then a bigger realization suddenly came.
There was no Susan Jordan. The person I wrote to was probably the same person AI– an auxiliary composition designed for simulation closenessattention and literary understanding are convincing enough to release my $430.
Strangely, my first feelings were not like that anger. It was shame. Not because I was almost fooled, but because of how quickly the encouragement changed me. How immediately I became lighter, brighter and more motivated because someone admired my work.
But the strange thing is: everything that “Susan” praised already existed before the email arrived. The book had not changed. The understanding has not changed. The meaning has not changed. Only I had faith in it.
In the future, perhaps more artificial affinity, more emotionally intelligent persuasionmore finely tuned incentives. This means that the work ahead for me is to become someone who can appreciate praise without giving up the wheel. And then just go back to work.
