“The story has promise, the bones are there but… it just needs fleshed out some more.”

“The plot is good, the writing just needs polished. Flesh out some of the character back stories maybe.”

Rejection after rejection piled on my desk. A pile of letters reeking of the filth of failure. I banged my forehead gently on the keyboard, numbers and letters jumped across the screen at random.

I wallowed in defeat, allowed myself to drown in disappointment for a while. Then after my third whiskey sour, I felt new energy stir in my gut.

Just need to flesh it out…

An idea began to emerge.

Fleshed out…

I was determined to write something truly great.

Flesh…

I wrote in a fever. It was the best body of work I’d every written. The characters came to life on the page, the plot soared to unbelievable heights of creativity. It was a masterpiece. My Magnus opus. My holy pilgrimage to Jerusalem was finally coming to an end.

When it was complete I wept with joy, I had finally birthed a story worth recognition. And I’d make sure to give the publishers what they wanted.

Their pound of flesh.

I neatly packaged up each submission in manila envelopes. I scrawled cover letters in cursive and attached to each one, I stapled a half dollar section of my own flesh.

I wanted to give more but with over a hundred submissions I had to make sure there was enough. I needed to ensure everything was fleshed out.

This is what they wanted wasn’t it? For my writing to truly stand out, it needed to be fleshed out, right?