Was this a trap? “I think that we should not have a scarcity mind-set around creation.”

She nodded.

We moved on to the writing test. A whiteboard surface was wheeled over to me. I had to create conflict, choose the best Lines, resolve labyrinthine plots, and decide when a Line was ready to be sent to the betas. I wrote furiously, and all the joy was sucked out of the act. I did not want to entertain these men or temper my ideas so that they would become palatable.

When I was finished Honcho told me to wheel my surface over to him and pick up a tablet to take my diagnostic dialogue test.

“A scene from an Elemental Arrow-Line, only the Speech-Explosions muted. You must write in your own.”

How did Blithe ever keep a straight face around here?

I watched two ripped men screaming back and forth on a pirate ship. Obviously, they were evil gay whalers who had been kidnapped by sea-creature-loving pirates.

“All right, man, we’ll be in touch,” Honcho told me when I’d finished.

“Do you want my portfolio?”

I’d bought a plastic sleeve with some of my G+T fan fiction.

Honcho shrugged. “Leave it on the couch.”

“Do you have my number and everything?” I hadn’t turned in a formal résumé, thankfully.

“Naw, we use other ways.”

I went back through the building in a deflated state. For all of my giddiness about “new ways,” Elemental was a replica of the same old shit. It was remarkable that Blithe had lasted there as long as he did. I found Blithe’s car in the lot and slumped down in the passenger seat with my head against the wheel.

The one TV show that could not disappoint me was Goblins and Trolls. I asked Blithe if he could hook me up with G+T’s studio, but he could not—a tight-knit group of Radical Faeries and activists circulated the writing jobs among themselves. At least I could tell Margot that I was trying to find a job. Jillian and I arranged an ongoing G+T screening every Sunday night, after my call with Margot. We watched as the goblins, trolls, faeries, elves, and wizards fought and made up, birthed queer spawn with diabolical proclivities, and ventured far from the Kingdom of Tolle to seek their destinies. The Technicolor wonderland of their fields and castles and thatched huts entranced us as the plot grew more and more unwieldy. Jillian and I texted back and forth:

Wow, I can’t believe they just killed off the Folding Wizard!

Yah, but the Mage can bring most creatures back to life.

Tru.

Who is that purple spiky guy?

I think they’re the spawn of that villainous druid and the soothsayer.

Ah okay.