Hi! This definitely constitutes a first-world problem, and comes from only myself, but perhaps you’ll find it one you’d like to help with. I’m novelist Paul Mosier, author of award winning and critically acclaimed novels for middle graders such as Train I Ride, Echo’s Sister and Summer And July. Please help me drive fewer hours for Uber so I can finish writing the ambitious novel for grownups, HOW TO ESCAPE A STORY! It’s the 2nd novel I ever began but stands to be the 12th I will finish. I believe every art endeavor teaches the artist something they weren’t asking to be taught, and I think the time it is taking me to finish reflects how much the story needs to teach me. It’s very meta and postmodern and funny and strange, and has become a vehicle to explore the meaning of everything life has thrown at me and my family since I began it 11 years ago.

John is a writer in NYC who thinks he is living the dream— every day he walks his two charming daughters to school, then hangs out at his favorite coffeehouse, staring into space, writing unpalatable novels while his wife makes all the money as a contract lawyer. With their younger daughter now in school he feels pressure for some measure of success. Fortunately he has what he feels is a great idea, which is to torment his 25 year old female protagonist—Shawnee—by putting her in a different genre every day of her life. He writes her from workplace romance to fairy tale to sexy vampire to English parlor drama—just to mess with her head, whatever that means. He thinks the story is going great, until his laptop is stolen by a junkie named Hungry Joe.

Hungry Joe tries to sell the laptop but it’s such a piece of junk the pawn shop doesn’t want it, and so he begins reading the novel being written on it. Hungry Joe thinks John’s story is pretty good, but of course he’s got some ideas of how to make it better, and reaches out to John.

John thinks he must have sent the unfinished novel to agents my mistake, and is excited to meet with Hungry Joe. After recovering from the shock and disappointment that Hungry Joe is not an agent but a thief who stole his laptop, he’s so happy that someone is interested in his story he’s willing to overlook the theft, and a strange friendship begins. But Hungry Joe sees it as more of a collaboration, and keeps telling John what he should do with the story. When John won’t stop tormenting his protagonist or promise he’ll give Shawnee a happy ending, Hungry Joe writes himself into the story to warn her she’s a character in someone’s novel. His intent is to help her, but instead he pokes a hole in the veil, dissolving whatever boundary may exist between the “real” and written worlds, and gives Shawnee an existential crisis, the curse of self-awareness, and a ticking clock counting down to a real danger

The story made me wonder who was writing my own, which of course I then inflicted on my character author, John. I believe the novel is too complex for me to have gotten my head around when I first wrote the last words 11 years ago, but the ten novels I have written since beginning this one have sharpened my skills to where I am now ready. Now 60, broke but not quite broken, I’m trying to resurrect myself from the loss of our younger daughter Harmony and my contract with Harper, and persist with creating, as she did until her last breath. With your help I hope I can drive less for Uber in the next few months and wrap this story up, then begin sending queries to potential agents, as I’ll need a new one.

There has never been a guarantee that anything I have written would pay, but it’s still the best use of my time, the best I can offer our species. Those who know my work won’t be surprised to find the manuscript trying to find the beauty in a strange life where everything is a story.

Thank you!