Day 9: 17,015 Words

 

Today's writing was mostly fun. I think that everyone will appreciate today's mostly meaningless scene between James and Abigail. I also wrote about Isla and Theo, who are having a pleasant conversation. Isla is realizing that Theo just made a bad first impression, and probably isn't the tool that she thinks he is. 

This is kind of a problem— I'm not even 20,000 words in! What barriers should I be throwing their way? I need ideas!

As she was walking towards the studio from the subway, she heard some screams and immediately wheeled around, hoping to see Fernando Torres. Instead, it was just the next generation of James van der Beek’s fan club, who saw him pulling up in his loud black convertible. 

“James,” Abigail said as their paths converged. “Are you excited to fight a shirtless Jim Ribbins today?”

“I take it personally that you didn’t write me as being shirtless too,” James complained. 

“You put it in your contract that you can be shirtless whenever you want,” Abigail pointed out. “Nothing is stopping you.”

“Sometimes I just want to be asked,” James lamented quietly. 

“As great as it would be to have you shirtless in that scene,” Abigail said carefully, “I feel like showing up to your daughter’s prom shirtless just isn’t in Dawson’s character arc.”

“Good point,” James agreed.

“And anyway, it’s Dawson’s Creek, not Jim’s Creek,” she pointed out.

“Thank you for saying that.”

Abigail decided that now was the time to probe for information about Space Jam: Futbolista. James seemed to have his ear to the studio ground much more than Abigail ever did.

“So I saw some of the stars of Space Jam last week,” Abigail started. “Are they still shooting here?”

“I think so,” James answered. “I haven’t been here much either. We’ve been shooting in Niagara-on-the-Lake.”

“Right,” Abigail replied, cursing herself for forgetting that they had done a lot of outdoor scenes in the past few episodes. 

“I met them a couple of days ago. Nice guys. Except I went up to one of them and started introducing myself Spanish, but then he told me that he was Welsh and asked me to stop.”

Abigail laughed. That was exactly the kind of thing that Abigail expected James to do. She’d heard James’ Spanish. It was pretty gross.

“I guess I might see them around,” Abigail said as casually as she could.

“Well if you do, don’t assume they’re Spanish,” James warned.

“I couldn’t speak to them in Spanish even if I wanted to,” Abigail said as the thought was occurring to her that chatting up a Spanish celebrity while not knowing Spanish might be challenging.

Abigail and James walked up to the Studio 6 entrance together, chatting about the scenes they were planning on shooting that day. Just as James was reaching , Abigail noticed a soccer ball sailing through the air directly towards them. 

“Jame—” Abigail managed to get out, before the soccer ball hit James square in the back. 

He tripped over a pile of chairs that had been assembled outside of the doors, and crashed into a folding table that had improbably also been positioned outside of the doors. He slumped to the ground, humiliated. 

“What a big fall!” Abigail exclaimed, as she rushed to help James up.

James seemed dazed initially, but recovered quickly. He was dusting himself off and rearranging the inexplicable outdoor furniture when a wildly attractive group of five footballers ran over. They were all wearing tight green jumpsuits. This was presumably because they were filming on green screen, but after the outfits that she saw them wearing previously, she couldn’t be sure.

“We are so sorry!” shouted a man that Abigail now recognized as Herlock Sholmes, as he jogged up.

“Are you okay?” Fernando Torres asked, with a strong Spanish accent.

“It’s lucky I’m not doing a shirtless scene today,” James said smiling at most of the group. He and Garth Ball, however, exchanged icy glances. It appeared as if Ball was still salty about James assuming that he spoke Spanish. 

More sheepish than usual, James slunk into the studio. Abigail wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to spend more time with the overwhelmingly attractive footballers that were somehow suddenly surrounding her. She truly couldn’t believe her luck.

“I’m Abigail, one of the writers on a show that films here,” she said, waving her hand to avoid a round of awkward handshakes.

The handsome group introduced themselves, seemingly excited to have escaped the clutches of Studio 7. 

“We were just having a good old fashioned kickaround when Garth over here decided to send the ball long for no reason,” Herlock Sholmes explained, sounding extremely British.

After observing the animosity between James and Garth—who ironically appeared to be in the nascent stages of a celebrity feud—Abigail was convinced that the Welshman might have kicked the ball at James on purpose.