This essay should be called On a Deadline, but as it is the last I will be composing in a while, I’d like it to be On Paris. Why Paris?

Why Paris.

Dear reader,

Ten years ago, a girl in an office received a box of chocolates from a chocolaterie in Paris. The box was small and square and a pale peony pink laced with gold. It contained four little  chocolates. Just four, bite-sized, silken chocolates. She had one. It was on a Monday in November. I remember distinctly.

The office was empty. It was not yet eight o’clock, on a Monday. She had one exquisite bite of chocolate. She closed the box and waited. At eight fifteen, her boss arrived. She gave him till eight twenty-three, then went into his office, where she offered him a chocolate from the box, and her resignation.

When he said What, what the hell, why? She said she was going to Paris. When he said What the hell, why Paris? She didn’t answer.Did she have a job? A lover?A sensible reason? Money? Enough to get her there. A plan? She thanked him for his time and left the chocolates on his desk.

You won’t go! She did. You’ll regret it. It was the best decision I ever made. That story is also the prologue of a novel I am currently writing.

It is called Why Paris. and due to be published by Harper in 2023, and I am in love with this book, and on a deadline, and writing, writing, writing. Which is why, dear reader, I must apologize, but I will be pausing my essays on The non-Utilitarian until it is finished.

I will be back, I promise. I hope you will too. Until then, thank you for the pure joy every Thursday has been with you.

Yours,

P.S. If you have been supporting me with a monthly donation, first of all, thank you. I cannot tell you what it has meant to me. Second, I understand completely if you would like to cancel. You may do so here. And again, thank you for believing in my writing and me.