The four-hour story

At 6:05 this evening I received a call for submissions that an editor sent to her regular contributors. She did not have any Easter or spring-themed stories and needs some for her April issue. And she needs them tomorrow.

At 10:17 this evening, I e-mailed a brand-new 2,300 word story to that editor. Deducting the time I spent on a personal phone call, it looks like I wrote the story from start to finish in four hours.

If the editor buys the story and pays the usual rates, I'll receive 3-cents/word. Not so good on a per-word basis. On the other hand, it works out to $17.25/hour, which isn't bad for an evening that I might have otherwise spent watching reruns.

And if she doesn't buy the story, the time spent was still better utilized than watching reruns.