Read One Hundred Names (Special Edition) for Free Online Page B

on in, they’re all in Pete’s office, brainstorming.’
    Pete’s office
. Calling it that immediately riled Kitty, and though it had absolutely nothing to do with Pete, she momentarily despised him, as if he alone had conspired with God to obliterate her friend. As duty editor he had taken over while Constance was ill, and Cheryl Dunne, an ambitious young woman not much older than Kitty, was acting deputy editor, while Bob spent the past months full time with Constance. Because of Pete and Cheryl’s presence, the place felt different. Pete and Cheryl had found their own routine and natural rhythm, and while it seemed everybody else had learned to fall into step with that rhythm, Kitty had been struggling.
    It was nine months since Constance had been at the helm of
Etcetera
, six months since she had stepped inside the offices at all, and in that time it was clear to see that the stories Kitty had written were not exactly her best. They were by no means below par or else Pete wouldn’t have published them and Constance, who had been keeping a close eye on everything even until the end, would have dragged Kitty into the hospital kicking and screaming to put her in her place. She had been good at doing that. As well as wanting her magazine to be the greatest on the shelves, she never wanted anybody to fail to meet their potential. To her that was the greatest error of all.
    Knowing that, after Constance’s funeral Kitty had retreated to her flat, not to lick her wounds but to further pour salt on them by poring over her stories, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong, where she needed to go in the future, what her strengths and weaknesses were. As soon as she read her stories from the past six months she could see that they lacked sparkle. As much as she hated to admit it, and she never would to anybody out loud, there was almost a robotic painting-by-numbers feel to her writing. They were informative, emotional and possessed style and a little flair, and they met the standards of the magazine on all levels by covering similar themes with different angles – with a monthly magazine, having a unique angle to an already covered story was top priority – but, rereading them, Kitty felt a stale taste in her mouth. After the disastrous experience with
Thirty Minutes
she was aware that nothing she had ever written and would probably ever write again would please her as it once had. She knew she was deliberately finding flaw with everything about herself, and finding very little to celebrate. She second-guessed everything she said and did but, despite her self-doubt, she knew she was right about the deterioration of her writing.
    Constance’s method of motivation during brainstorming was not for everyone. It had been perfect for Kitty, but while she knew Pete and Cheryl appreciated Constance’s methods, she also knew they couldn’t wait to leave the office so they could return to their own sources of inspiration: other magazines, newspapers, internet sites and twenty-four-hour news networks to see what was new, current and hot. Constance’s method was always about looking within for the answers. She had asked her staff to look at themselves for stories: what was moving them at that particular moment, what was challenging them, what were the issues not of the day in the world but of the day in their hearts and minds; mumbo jumbo to people like Pete and Cheryl. Constance always believed those subjects would make stronger stories. Instead of writing for the market, she wanted them to write for themselves. It was only then, she believed, that the readers would connect. She wanted her writers not just to be informative and stylish but she encouraged the artist within them to come out. How stories were decided on varied between Constance telling specific people to write particular stories that she knew they were suited to, or which would challenge them, and also by listening to ideas. She was very much an advocate of