Writing Is Fun. The Business of Writing Is Not.

A week ago I emailed my agent to find out the status of my middle-grade manuscript and my children’s manuscript only to discover the middle grade needed more work. Like any other writer I balked at my agent’s notion of the manuscript being incomplete and I moped for several days. The easiest thing to do would be to dump my agent and self-publish. I  had an artist lined up to paint the book jacket. Some author friends of mine were going to help me put the manuscript on Amazon. Just like that, I would be published. My seventh book. My friends would buy it, but the news media and the bookstores would ignore me. In my heart that isn’t what I want. I’m known in Madison, but I want more. Finding another agent is impossible. Agents don’t grow on trees. What should I do? I edited twenty-nine chapters in five days. I have ten more chapters to edit. It will be finished by Wednesday. My editor is reading the revised version of the manuscript and putting the chapters together. He likes what I have done. I have cut a quarter of it. Kids don’t want many descriptions and the manuscript has to move fast like a movie. That’s what I’m doing all week. Of course, my agent wanted me to hire another editor. She wants a chapter every few weeks but that isn’t me. In a week she will have a revived manuscript. That’s Steve Salmon. This is how I want to be remembered. New York might never happen, but I won’t change what I write.