Viktor Redreich has written over 30 books read more than a million times.
Problem is, he hates writing.
He’d much rather be zooming around a race track in a sports car, sipping single malt whiskey by a crackling bonfire, bungee jumping into the depths of a tropical rainforest, or sailing across the crystal blue seas on a yacht, surrounded by beautiful girls in bikinis.
He writes because he’s forced to.
It all started when he quit his advertising job. Formerly Senior Strategist for one of the world’s biggest advertising agencies, he had a better job offer he couldn’t refuse: Chief Marketing officer for a casino.
Before he started his new job though, he decided to take a few days off to visit Japan.
And so, one spring afternoon, in the midst of powder pink cherry blossom trees on the banks of the Kamogawa river in Kyoto, he put pen to paper.
Yes, actual old-fashioned fountain pen on leather-bound paper.
And he wrote. And wrote, and wrote.
Joyous couples walked past the bench he was sitting on, pushing babies in strollers. Lovers waltzed past, stealing kisses and holding hands as the skies turned orange and golden and yellow, a peach parfait of colors, as the evening came.
Lovers were soon replaced by dolled-up geisha stepping steadfastly towards tea houses as the sky darkened, turning violet, crimson and maroon. As Viktor continued to write, the Geisha were replaced by drunken businessmen stumbling from one bar to the next, their loud ramblings filling the midnight canopy.
By sunrise Viktor had written his first book–Full Body Massage–a story about an erotic massage therapist named Kent with a heart of gold who used his hands not just to make women cum, but to heal their aching souls.
As soon as he’d finished writing his first book, Viktor got up from the bench he’d been sitting on, and tossed the leather-bound notebook into the trash.
Who wants to read a book about a hunky young college dude who goes around giving naughty massages to sexually frustrated women anyway?
A few hours later he boarded the bullet train to the airport and that was that. Time to begin his new job as Chief Marketing Officer and abandon any silly notions of writing books.
Except, the lady sitting across from him on the train looked exactly like Shana, the college professor in the book he’d just written. Shana, the olive-skinned, curly-haired woman who corrupted, tricked and manipulated the golden-hearted hero of Full Body Massage into becoming an erotic massage therapist in the first place.
Viktor struck up a conversation with the lady sitting across from him. Turns out her name actually was Shana. And get this: she actually was a university professor.
Holy fuck what are the odds?
He laughed at the coincidence, brushing it off until much later when he struck up a conversation in the airport lounge with a broad-shouldered, kind-hearted young man named Kent.
Just like the main character in Full Body Massage.
And so, in the days that followed, more and more characters from the abandoned book sprang into Viktor’s life, calling his sanity into question and threatening to drive him clinically bonkers.
So he called up his boss-to-be and explained that he needed another week before he could begin his new job. He had a personal matter to take care of.
Viktor then sat at the rosewood desk in his home office and got to work completely rewriting Full Body Massage. Within six days he’d posted it online for free for all the world to read, and that was that.
The end. No more writing any more books. Ever.
Until his readers started bombarding him with questions: is Full Body Massage based on a true story? Are you actually Kent? When’s the sequel coming out? Where can I buy your other books?
Soon, readers found him on social media and started bothering him in the middle of meetings. They found out where he worked and started bothering his secretary. And when Viktor refused to pay any attention to his pesky readers, they found the names of Viktor’s friends and started bothering them instead.
So Viktor did what any sane person would do.
Delete the goddamned book.