The Hockey Star Regret
The office buzzed with low chatter phones ringing, keyboards clicking, someone laughing near the water cooler.
I wasn’t an editor. Not yet. I wasn’t even allowed to read most submissions past the first ten pages unless assigned. My job was simple: log the manuscripts, make notes if something stood out, fetch coffee, file documents, and occasionally run errands for the senior assistants. It was grunt work. Exhausting. Repetitive. But I didn’t mind.
Every day I was surrounded by books by writers whose words had made it through this same process. The thought made even the paper cuts worth it.