my update

SD is right: I went back to add in back story and descriptive narrative, and deleted loads of the original text.

Here's today's update:

Every nerve in Robbie's body was now starting to pay the price for Katie’s suggestion. There was a time when he was the life of every party, but that was before he’d started working for the devil incarnate. Now, work kept him up all hours of the night, and it was stress that was causing the dark circles under his eyes and the grey tinge to his skin, not a lack of vegetables and over-indulgence in spirits. He realised, with more than a touch of self-loathing, that he’d sold his soul in a Proustian pact.

Robbie had studied English at Oxford, spending as much time in various drama societies putting on plays as he did studying Beowulf in the original text. While he had been a student, from time to time, the newspapers picked up on the fact that one of his peer group had been selected for a role in a Kenneth Branagh production, or had a breakthrough role in a Bond film. With a long tradition of stars coming from the hallowed spires, such as Hugh Grant and Imogen Stubbs, it was a slowly dawning realisation for Robbie that non-speaking walk-on roles in Eastenders and The Bill didn’t equal true success.


(before anyone tells me, it's deliberately a Proustian pact, not Faustian)