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Simone: How are the revisions coming? Did you make any headway this weekend?

Grace: Yep. Making headway. Really happy with the revisions I’ve made so far.

No need to tell Simone the entirety of those revisions was spent on tweaking the opening sentence all weekend long. But surely anyone would agree that Gracie’s new first sentence— Heather hated horses —was far superior to her original first sentence— Heather had never been all that fond of horses.

The alliteration alone ought to hook readers.

Simone: Glad to hear it! Especially since you’re not getting an extension on your deadline. Just heard back from your editor...

No extension. Okay. No need to panic. Gracie’s got gumption. See? Look at that. Another alliteration. She was on top of her writing game.

Grace: Won’t be a problem. Thanks for the update.

Simone: Go get ’em, Cowboy!

A GIF pinged through a second later. Gracie adjusted her reading glasses, but it didn’t help. She still saw the same image of herself climbing onto the coin-operated horse in the back of a pickup truck and falling off the side a moment later. On repeat.

Thankfully the video was shot from behind, so nobody could see her face. But still. She was a GIF now. A GIF on a deadline. Yee-haw.