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Exits first. People second. That's the order, and it's never failed me.

The Moretti gala delivers exactly what it promises—chandeliers hanging like storms that forgot to fall, marble polished until it throws your reflection back at you whether you want it or not, and beneath the perfume, that particular smell of men who paid retail for their innocence. My instructions tonight couldn't be simpler. Stay close to Lorenzo Moretti. Blend into the wallpaper. Be nobody.

Nobody is my specialty.

Then she...

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

My mind would not stop. It circled back to the deposition the way a tongue returns to a cracked tooth. Kazan’s voice on the recording, flat and rapid. The name I had translated. Mercer’s pen moving across his notebook. The sedan on the street corner. Gerald’s voice on the phone. Yevgeni Kasan.

Can you develop a heart-throbbing crush on a man you’ve only seen once and never spoken to? Never actually met? My clit throbbed in response, and if my soaked panties...

Glossary of Foreign Language Terms

• Nadenka - diminutive/affectionate form of Nadia
• Zhenya - diminutive/affectionate form of Yevgeni
• Babushka - Grandmother
• Dedushka - Grandfather
• kotyónochek - kitten
• krasavitsa - beautiful
• Bozhe moy - Oh my God
• Ya v bede - I'm in trouble.
• Ya tebya lyublyu, durochka - I love you, little fool.
• Ya tebya tozhe - I love you too.
• Ya tebya lyublyu, Nadenka - I love you, Nadenka
• Дерьмо (Der'mo) – Shit
• Pakhan - Boss/head of a Bratva organization
• Bratva - Brotherhood...

A24 films feel like stories that crawl under your skin and stay there—and that is exactly the energy you can steal for your novel or ebook. These movies use techniques that work just as well on the page as they do on the screen, and once you start applying them, your fiction will feel deeper, tenser, and far more memorable.

The slow-burn trap

Most writers think tension means constant explosions: cliffhangers every chapter, twists every few pages. A24 flips that idea and builds dread like a...

Here is a great, not too long TED Talk about the power of moving every 30 minutes. For writers, this is a must. We sit in one place for hours world and character building and banging out prose. If you move every 30 minutes or so, it will go a long way towards extending your life, making you a happier, more focused writer and all around healthier person.

Here's the link: Move every 30 minutes