End Notes: Deadlines Installment #6

Howdy from Texas. Bring water. And a warning label.

ICYMI: The Secretary Volume II is out now. Read it here.  

I have a new standalone thriller locked, loaded, and coming for you.

As for Deadlines...

The fans wanted a reckoning.
Mallory gave them something else instead.
Now she’s off the page—and not in the mood for edits.

Missed an installment?
Catch up on the blog before she changes her mind.

---

Welcome to Deadlines
A note before we begin

Deadlines follows Mallory Blythe, a writer who doesn’t just revise the endings she hates—she rewrites everything. Fiction. People. Outcomes. It’s satirical. It’s dark. And sometimes it gets a little close to the bone.

These are fictional stories. That part’s not up for interpretation.

Mallory’s opinions and actions are hers—and hers alone.

Each installment stands on its own. But together, they build something messier. More dangerous. And, I hope, fun.

____________________________

End Notes

Deadlines: Final? Installment

It ends with blood.

Of course it does.

Not mine.

Not yet.

There’s a folder on my desk.

Marked-up pages.

Red ink, or maybe not.

A single note in the margin:

Try not to take it personally.

Too late.

The subreddit’s in freefall.

The fanbase turned mob.

Someone leaked a draft I never finished and called it “proof of decline.”

They want carnage.

They want a reckoning.

They want me broken. Or fixed.

Same difference, I suppose.

I’m not in the mood.

This isn’t a breakup.

It’s a sabbatical.

Probably.

That’s what I tell myself as I draft this note—no edits, no footnotes, no lipstick. No Latin.

Just truth.

Or something close enough to leave a mark.

They’ll say I burned out.

That I got soft.

That a man ruined me.

(Which is flattering. And incorrect.)

But here’s the real story:

While they foam and flail and fight over a version of me I never authorized, I’ve been a little busy.

Book deal. Film rights. A lecture series in Vienna.

A six-figure check from a media company that once called me “a cautionary tale in silk.”

They’re still arguing about whether I sold out or self-destructed.

Meanwhile, I’m choosing cover art.

They think they’ve won because I went quiet.

But silence doesn’t mean surrender.

It means editing.

And my next draft doesn’t mess around.

This?

It’s the literary equivalent of a smirk from across a war zone.

So, if this is the last chapter—fine.

If it’s not? I’ll write a better one.

Just don’t rewrite my ending while I’m gone.

You won’t like how it turns out.

—Mallory Blythe

New installments post Sundays at 10AM CST. Newsletter subscribers get them Saturdays.

---

Want to make sure you never miss a post? Sign up to have them delivered straight to your inbox.

---