I finished the magazine edits on Thursday. At the end, only one article needed more help than I could give it. In fact if I were the editor of a paying magazine I would have sent back a rejection. The rest were fun reads overall, and I learned quite a bit from each one. I was pleased most of the articles needed little editing by way of the technical side, and one didn’t need a single edit, grammatical or otherwise. That was refreshing.

After I completed the edits and moved them to the proper online folder, I sent an email to the Editor in Chief to let him know I finished.

He emailed me back thanking me and asked me to send him an invoice for $250. My response was, “You mean I get paid?” Considering the magazine is free to subscribers and the writers don’t get paid for their submissions, I assumed the editing was also volunteer.

The editor did add I could contribute my services for free if I wanted, because it would affect my year-end taxes.

You may be surprised that I did think about it. Part of it was due to, what if they no longer want me to continue the technical edits because I want to be paid for it?

On the other hand, if my services are worth anything — that I did them well — then they won’t mind paying me.

So were my edits worth the $250? In the end, yes. And since they offered, I doubt they’s begrudge me for taking the money. In fact, I found my name and email on the home page of the AUGIWorld website, so they definitely appreciate my efforts and expect me to continue.

Plus it’s one more thing to add to my writing resume.

The timing could not be more perfect. We’re trying to spend as much time as possible with my dad, and adding in the traveling, gas and motels, the costs are getting up there. The $250 will go a long way in alleviating some of the monetary burden.

Thank you, God.