A Brand New Romantic Comedy

I love starting new things. And, over the past week or so, I've been playing with a new romantic comedy. It's just a seedling right now, the wee little start of a story that I hope will blossom and grow into a book. I'm calling it "Second Hand Love" at the moment though the title may change if I can think of something more suitable. It's set in New York and the main character is twenty three year old Zoe Markham,  a young woman with her first real job in journalism, who hopes to make a splash with a new blog called 'uncoupled' in which she writes about broken romances.
So far, I'm having fun with it!

Here's a little peek at the beginning, such that it is:

"I'm going to call it 'Uncoupled'."

Bella, who was carefully painting her finger and toenails fire engine red, shook her head. "You're kidding, right?"

This stung. I hadn't been kidding. Ever since Morgan Fenton, the executive editor at New York Today, the e-zine where I worked, mentioned he was toying with the idea of featuring a new blog, I'd been wracking my brain to come up with a theme. The idea hit me as I was lathering shampoo through my hair in the shower. It rose out of nowhere, as though the flowing water had finally freed my mind and I'd been so excited I shouted "eureka!" under the spray..

Leave it to my roommate to knock the wind, or water, or enthusiasm, right out of my idea with a simple wave of a nail polish brush. "It's too depressing, Zoe. I mean, do you think people will really want to read about breaking up?"

"Of course they will. You love hearing about my bad dates and crazy exes." I raised my eyebrows in triumph, because it was true, Bella would listen to all my stories as long as I provided the chardonnay.

"That's because I'm trying to help you," she answered without an ounce of irony. "By the way, what happened with Ryan?"

Case in point, just yesterday Bella had fixed me up with a friend of her fiancés, a stock broker who made the Wolves of Wall Street look like a puppy pack. I groaned. "He took me to the Palm, ordered up a fifty dollar steak and then spent the whole night with his ear glued to his cell phone. I think he should have asked the phone out to dinner."