Today though, her words were molehills on a perfect lawn, well not so perfect thanks to the details to come news. They did ruin the positive thought process which he had been careful to maintain.

He tried to smile, make light of the whole thing. What he wanted really was to flatten those molehills; hammer the hell out of them and the creature who made them. At that thought, he’d stopped himself, thinking he was losing a little control.

It was his mind’s fault, it kept traveling back to his conversation with Morris regarding his own manuscript. He’d expected to hear high praise, not “They require you to make drastic cuts. A ghostwriter possibly to help.”

A ghostwriter! He’d won awards, for God’s sake!

Heat, prickly and dark, shot from his gut to wrap around his chest and squeeze off his breath. Then he calmed himself and breathed out, digging his fingernails into his palm to remind him, this was a test maybe to teach him control.

He wondered why the hell he even sat here with her when he had problems of his own. The audacity of a novice to question them, him, Morris, the way of the industry. In his case it was different; he could wrestle with editors because he was an experienced professional. She was a nobody.

“No, my dear,” he had said. He’d admit the dear had sounded a touch patronizing. “They’re the experts and they have to sell the product. They know what sells in the stores. Think of this as a collaboration between you and the editor, the marketing department, and probably the girl who makes the coffee in their luxurious offices. If they tell you to jump over your laptop, you say how high and in what direction?”

He had thought at the time that she didn’t appear to be listening, that his words weren’t just falling on deaf ears but being swatted away by a determined hand. She wasn’t asking how high or even taking a single foot off the ground.

“What do you do when they ask you to make big changes in your work?” she asked, with now the other eyebrow raised to meet its partner.

“I do what they say. They don’t call a publisher’s author list a stable of writers for nothing. You can fight inconsequential things, but this sounds pretty much a deal breaker. You’re a new writer. This was a favor from Morris. From me. I didn’t want you to get your hopes up. That’s why I hadn’t let you know I’d asked him to shop your book to publishers.”

For a moment, he thought she might be about to cry, so he softened his tone, realizing this news had really hurt her.

“Here’s my advice. You don’t have a contract yet, so don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I know this isn’t what you’d hoped, but sometimes you must sell a piece of your soul. Not all, but that little sliver on the edge you won’t miss. Change the damn character and see what happens.”