For a writer who has had to scratch and claw for every rung up the ladder (and I’m still climbing) I’ve finally reached a place where publishers and writer friends are coming to me with work. Some of this is paid work like “We’d like you to pitch us on this new project” which, until recently for me, was a new phenomenon. Others are “Buddy, I could really use a beta reader!”

Yes, very hard to say no no to paying work, when you’ve been begging for paying work for years.

I also have a problem sa...