Bookworms Unite!

Ah, good. Carla seemed to be willing to work on this edit. Candice pulled up the story, written by one of the members of the club. She had done initial edits, made sure there were no typos, and made sure the sentences made sense. But for other edits, Candice would love a second opinion.

”Ah, it shouldn’t take you too long. I did the bulk of it, I just want to make sure it makes sense and that another editor approves it.” She said. She was listening to Carla until she heard the door open and glanced over at the idiot professor Dillis who called them nuggers. She rose her eyebrows. That was one mispronunciation away from a very, very insulting word. However she knew this idiot – he did not mean to insult them. But his haphazard instructions left her annoyed. Her brow twitched as she angrily grabbed her assignment and jotted down all she heard of him saying. Old cartoons, none of which she liked. Plays? She didn’t like those either. She preferred novels. And not ones about space battles! This was supposed to be a short story about encountering the unexpected – not space battles!

”That fact that he is a professor at all.” Candice snapped. She sharply exhaled. ”I swear he doesn’t know how to use his email. His assignments are always so ridiculously out of it, not to mention he doesn’t appreciate a realistic story. He just wants the crazy ones.”

Usually, Candice got away with a series of short stories about gifted students – that was creative enough to fit in Willis’ enjoyment, but not so ridiculous it made Candice cringe. She glanced over at Carla. ”Not to mention I don’t think he ever fails anyone. He just tells you to write whatever. Honestly, you could submit the entirety of that awful My Immortal fanfiction for a grade and he’d probably like it because it’s so random.” She rolled her eyes. ”I’m here to become a writer, not to have my manuscript laughed away by the first publishing house I try to submit it to.”

Candice frowned at the now annoying assignment she had in front of her. Really. What kind of a professor changed the assignment after the sheets were handed out and his students were likely already making progress on it? It was so random, unprofessional, and out of Candice’s comfort zone.

She rose her brows at Carla’s sarcasm. ”Oh, I’m rarely not angry at him. I’m sure he’s a wonderful person but as a professor? He drives me mad.” She said. She was pleased to hear that Carla agreed with her on most of the points. That his prompts were borderline stupid, ridiculous, and made no sense when one tried to make sense of it. The mention of some kind of video game lizard caught her off-guard. ”You mean Yoshi? I know some thinks about Mario. I’m not crazy about it. And honestly? His class is literally like a Mario level. Random, stupid, and disorganized.”

Candice hoped he would walk back in and try to change something else on them. She was happily surprised when he didn’t. She shrugged. ”There’s a different between out there, original, and just being random for the sake of it. And he is definitely the latter.”

Candice nodded along with Carla’s assessment of an appropriate title for Dillis. That sounded about right. When she expressed surprise at her video gaming knowledge Candice rolled her eyes. ”Oh, I’m not. I just know because of references. You’d be surprised how many people talk about those stupid games while waiting for class to start. So many people have the exact same attention span as Dillis and can’t focus on anything other than stupid fantasy worlds and video games.”

When Dillis popped back in Candice felt her eyebrow twitching again. He was really giving them critique now? Just – randomly? She wanted to take the pen off of the desk and lob it at him. But he vanished before she could and she growled under her breath. ”Are you – are you serious right now?! He is such an unprofessional!” she glanced over at Carla, aghast. ”Did he just tell me to change my writing style just for him? He complains when people are killjoys but that is completely baffling to me. What? He can’t understand big words?” she said. ”And dinosaurs? Seriously? What kind of teacher tells his students exactly what to write? If he wants to read about dinosaurs he can write himself.”

Candice rubbed her fingers against her nose. This was ridiculous. She didn’t pay her hard earned money to come to this school and become a novelist in Dillis’ image. He was so crazy. She exhaled and looked at Carla. Another semester? She’d been dealing with this guy since she was a freshman at the college! Every single year she happened to only be able to fit one professor’s teachings, without fail, into her busy schedule – and it was Dillis. She shook her head.

”Are you kidding? The Land Before Time? He has such a – a childish imagination! He should quit this job and go write kids movies! He’d probably have a much, much more successful career doing that instead of wasting our time with his unrealistic goals.” She said. The compliment made Candice smile slightly. ”Thank you. My writing is just too serious for him. As is yours. The stories you’ve submitted are always the ones I’d rather publish when compared to other options.”

The comment about drinking made her snort. ”Oh believe me, I’m not going to finish this assignment of his without a drink. My roommate’s a bartender; she always makes the best drinks. If you ever want one, she thrives off of the opportunity to mix drinks.”

Carla was right. Dillis should look into a more fulfilling career in children’s literature or even in fanfiction. Candice was always picky with her fanfiction, and respected it, but some authors were just like Dillis. Overgrown children with unrealistic, uninteresting plots and lackluster writing. Though she was sure Dillis’ writing was good to some people, it just wasn’t something Candice enjoyed reading.

”Exactly. And he’s so hindering on our skills. Just because we don’t adapt to what he wants does not make us bad writers – it makes us different. Professors who don’t understand that are so naïve.” She rolled her eyes at the thought.”Of course. Most people in his class like the easy A. I would rather a challenging professor that doesn’t waste my time than an easy A.”

When Carla asked about drinks, Candice smirked slightly. ”She doesn’t usually add whole chocolate, but we do have chocolate vodka. We have Kahlua and French vanilla, and Bailey’s, and cream and milk. Erin makes some of the best mixed drinks around. If you want, tonight you can come over and we can power out this lame assignment.” She hit send on her screen. ”I sent you the other story I was talking about earlier by the way – get it to me whatever you can.”

Candice rolled her eyes.

”I had no choice. The only professors I like never have classes during times that I’m not working or busy.” She said. That was one thing that sucked about College, she guessed. It was good in a sense, but also bad because it made choosing professors so...limited. She closed the assignment she’d been working on. She definitely needed some alcohol to get through this. Carla’s comment about a snake astronaut made her snort. ”You’re awfully good at predicting what he’ll write. Maybe he’s rubbing off on you.” She couldn’t help but grin at the look on Carla’s face.

”Not a milk person? That’s fine. Erin loves practice mixing things of different portions.” She packed up her things into her bag and, once that was done, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and nodded. ”It’s fine. We have nothing to do tonight anyway – Erin always wants me to be more social. So she’ll be glad to see someone come over. Don’t worry though – she’d friendly, but she knows how to take a hint. She’ll leave us alone once we start the assignment.”

She stood up. ”Do you want me to come pick you up tonight, or would you rather head down now? It is...” she looked at her watch. ”Nearly five. We can order take out if you don’t’ have any dinner plans. If you do – I get it. I can drive by and pick you up after.”