Jeff, the owner of the Italian restaurant, found that Eric seemed to be a different person these days. When entertaining guests, he is no longer as jerky as before, occasionally making some harmless jokes with the guests, and once Jeff even discovered that Eric skillfully used a somewhat hippie but not offensive tone , flirted with a single lady in her thirties, and received three times the lady's tip and an unabashed wink at the checkout.
"Eric, did something good happen to you? I noticed that you've been... unusual recently?" During a break, Jeff finally couldn't help asking. He still cared about the child left by his old friend. of.
"Is it obvious?" Eric froze for a moment and asked.
Jeff laughed: "Of course, it's written all over your face."
"Perhaps, it's because I found the goal to strive for. You know, once a person has an ideal, the whole person will become very excited."
"Oh, what ideal, can you tell me about it?"
"Of course," Eric replied, "I've decided that I'm going to be a director in the future. Now, I'm writing my first script recently, and it will be finished in two days."
"Director...director?" Jeff was a little surprised, and subconsciously wanted to persuade Eric not to be so ambitious, but then remembered that the child had just escaped from the grief of his father's death and found a goal, so he swallowed his words.
Eric has the soul of a middle-aged man in his skin. With a slight movement of Jeff's face, Eric knew what he wanted to say, but he smiled and didn't care. After all, this is Hollywood. Every year, tens of thousands of people come here from all over the world to pursue their movie dreams, but very few succeed. It is normal for Jeff to think this way.
"That... When you finish writing the script, you can show it to me. You know, I also wanted to be an actor back then, don't look at me now," Jeff patted his huge beer belly, and continued : "I was very handsome back then. You know, I also auditioned for a small role in "The Godfather". In a blink of an eye, it has been so many years."
Eric was a little dumb. He didn't expect Jeff to have such a past, but he soon felt relieved. This is Hollywood, the largest film factory in the world. Nothing is impossible. Stallone even filmed "Italian Stallion丨" "Woolen cloth.
"No problem, you can give me some advice then." Eric replied, just enough for Jeff to help himself see if there are any loopholes in the script.
Although Eric has tried his best to modify some things in that script that appeared after 1988, there is no guarantee that there will be no flaws. And Jeff, as an outsider, can easily spot some inappropriate things in the script.
The two chatted and laughed a few more times, and several guests walked into the restaurant, and Eric hurried forward to greet the guests.
A day's work passed quickly, Eric returned home, had a quick dinner, and then started busy with the "Jurassic Park" novel and script.
"Jurassic Park" is basically done, and now it's the final proofreading. Eric plans to find time tomorrow to copy a few copies and submit them to several publishing houses. But the script only wrote an outline and some precautions that need to be revised. After completing these, for Eric, who has a complete image in his mind, it only takes two nights to finish writing the script.
The next morning, Eric left home at seven o'clock in the morning, intending to copy and mail "Jurassic Park". He had already prepared the submission addresses of some famous North American publishing houses in advance. The publisher rejected Eric's manuscript, and he will not be disappointed. You know, there are as many as tens of thousands of large and small publishing houses in North America, and there will always be one that is willing to publish this novel. Although "Jurassic Park" once rushed to the top of the "New York Times" bestseller list, what Eric cares about is not the royalties of "Jurassic Park", but just wants to hold the film and television copyright after the novel is published. in hand.
"Hello, how can I help you?" Just walking into a printing shop, a somewhat thin black female clerk warmly greeted her.
Eric took out the manuscript from his bag and said, "I want to make a few copies of this manuscript."
The black girl looked at the thick manuscript, her eyes lit up slightly, and the smile on her face became brighter: "Sir, can I have a look?"
"No problem," Eric handed over the manuscript.
The black girl did not pay attention to the content of the manuscript, but skillfully counted the next pages and said: "About more than three hundred pages, count your three hundred pages. Each copy costs 30 dollars, sir, how many copies do you want?" ?”
Thirty dollars! The corner of Eric's mouth twitched slightly, and he secretly sighed that it was so expensive. He only has a few hundred dollars in cash left now, and this is still the case of a month's salary advanced.
After some cheeky haggling, the two agreed on a price of one hundred dollars to make four copies. After paying the money, the black girl politely made Eric a cup of coffee, then took the manuscript and started copying.
Eric held the coffee cup and watched the black girl operating the copier in boredom. He secretly calculated the time, and it could be completed in about half an hour without delaying work in the restaurant. Although the restaurant doesn't really get busy until after ten o'clock, even if he is late, Jeff's character will not deduct his salary, but friendship is friendship, work is work, Eric knows that he wants to maintain a good relationship with Jeff , It is necessary to keep one's own duty.
About ten minutes later, the entrance of the printing shop was slightly dark, Eric looked up and saw a brown-haired white man walking into the shop with a leather bag.
The man was about forty years old, less than 1.7 meters tall, but he looked very strong, with brown stubble on his chin, a straight nose, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, and a slightly bald forehead. He exuded a gentle and bookish temperament.
"Welcome, sir, can you wait a moment?"
The brown-haired man nodded, greeted Eric politely, and sat down next to Eric. The black girl temporarily stopped what she was doing, and quickly poured a cup of coffee for the brown-haired man: "Sir, it will be ready in about ten minutes, please have a cup of coffee first."
The brown-haired man took the coffee and thanked him. Following the figure of the black girl and seeing the thick stack of manuscripts, his expression moved slightly. There were only three people in the shop, and the man couldn't help but focus on Eric.
"May I ask, is that your manuscript?"
Eric nodded and said: "Yes, a novel, I just finished it, and I plan to make a few copies for submission."
"You look like a high school student, but it's amazing. I couldn't do this when I was your age."
"Thank you, actually this is my first novel, and I don't have much confidence."
"No, you have to believe in yourself. Well, can I read your novel?" The brown-haired man said, took out a business card and handed it to Eric: "It just so happens that I have a small publishing house."
Eric took a look at the business card, Michael Krause, manager of Night Elf Publishing House. Eric's eyebrows couldn't help but jump, but fortunately it wasn't Michael Crichton. Eric couldn't help complaining about the lack of creativity of Westerners in naming names. In my memory, in Eric's high school class, there were two named Jack and two named Jessica, and the scope expanded to the whole school. There are even more famous people. Even the son was too lazy to come up with a new name when he was born, so he just called him Robert Downey Jr., it's the same!
Anyway, if you look at it and you won't be pregnant, Eric took the copied manuscript and handed it to Michael Krauss. The other party took the manuscript, glanced at the title, and said casually, ""Jurassic Park", a very interesting name."
Eric smiled slightly, but didn't answer. Michael Klaus didn't say anything anymore, just looked through it casually. As the reading progressed, Michael's casual expression gradually became serious. Although he praised Eric just now, he didn't think that Eric could write any wonderful novels at his age. In his past working experience, the authors of those best-selling books are almost all people full of life experience and rich knowledge accumulation.
After reading the manuscript in his hand quickly and carefully, Michael carefully tidied up some scattered manuscripts, and looked up at Eric, his eyes were full of surprise, excitement, luck and a little determination.
"Young man, may I know your name?"
"Eric Williams," Eric replied directly without being pretentious. With his rich experience in the previous life, how can he not see what is contained in Michael's expression at this time. Although he has no plans to hand over "Jurassic Park" to a small publishing house for the time being, it does not prevent him from getting acquainted with Michael Krause. It's also an option in case "Jurassic Park" does get rejected by those big-name publishers.