Colin Harvey – author

I think I may just have lost a sale, due to speaking my mind.

A piece that I submitted some time ago came back to me for revisions. No issue there; I’m happy to make changes as per an editor’s requests.

"I would like you to…." is fine. What I won’t tolerate is questions in caps (= shouting) or repeated comments like "You need to…"

I don’t need to do anything to a piece. I *need* to pay my rent, and go to work in the morning. That is *need*.

So I wrote saying exactly that, politely but firmly. I added that he will have the revisions next week, but I suspect that I’ll get a terse note back saying "Don’t bother."

But sod it, I’m being paid for my work, not to be a punch-bag for some upstart who wants to vent his creative spleen on me.

I’ll just have to write something else instead. It may be a pyrrhic victory, but I’ll settle for that.