I might be pretty new to this game but…I’m not sure the publishers here don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t want to seem like I’m stuck up or anything, but I’ve been writing this story about a man stuck up a ladder for seven years now, and it’s been ruthlessly edited many a time. Rewritten, you might say. This man has gone from an ordinary person stuck up a ladder to a full-fleshed out person with a mind of his own, a family, a backstory and a cat. The cat isn’t actually in the story, but this man thinks about it often, since he’s up there for several years and Mrs Klein next door only promised to look after it for a couple of days.
What I really want this story to be is an expose on the dangers of improper mobile scaffolding usage. So many folks around Melbourne setting up platforms and ladders, and they just don’t know how to do it properly. This is what happened to the guy in the story. He set up his folding platform steps, climbed to the top and realised that he’d done it totally wrong. See, he’d lied on his resume, stating that yes, of course he knew how to set up platforms! But as soon as he ascended, he knew that he couldn’t get down again. Instead of pointing blame, he was suddenly forced to face the house of lies and deceit he’d built up throughout his entire life. He elects to stay at the top of the ladder and think upon his sins, which forms the main bulk of the book: him sitting there, having flashbacks to all of is past mistakes. There’s also a section where he describes what’s going on below in vivid detail, but it’s a quiet street so there’s not too much of it. Maybe, like, a cat and some cars going past. Personally, I think it’s a postmodern critique on the nature of aluminium ladders across Australia, but that could just be me.
-Troy