"Sell out!" Ahh, the ambiguity! Isn't it amazing the range of connotation those two little words can have?

"It's a sellout!" is music to the ears of a live performer. Yet give that leading pronoun a more specific gender and we're awash in derogation: "he sold out." Too near "Et tu, Brute," that one. After all, how dare that other person abandon a conviction WE hold so dear?

How dare they indeed!

That's the pain of witnessing a sellout, isn't it? We've lost a member of our fold. Somehow the outseller becomes less pure if not possessed of a fully tainted soul. They've taken the easy path. WE would never be seduced by such base motivations as have obviously corrupted this fallen creature, would we? After all, we care not for fame nor money. Recognition of talent and food on the table are too sublunary to be of concern.

Or are they?

In an ideal world, perhaps. Personally, I find occasional encounters with food a pleasant thing. As are basic creature comforts and a decent credit score. Come to think of it, I like my pitiful patch of roofed personal space and am more than willing to do what it takes to fend off attempts by the bank to part me from it. To date, my day job has accomplished that fairly well, but the tainted creative soul within me demands more.

And so I write. Or, as Gene Fowler says, I stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on my forehead. And form they do before dribbling down in searing trails through sleep-deprived eyes. They splash across tired fingers, splattering words across the page. On occasional mornings after, I find they actually make sense.

The trouble starts when others do, too. My agent. My critique partners. The mind races. Imagine actually getting paid to write! I'll have sold out! A deeper question then comes to the fore: who am I to speak to a broader swath of humanity? Yet isn't that what writing's all about—conveying a message so that others appreciate its worth?

Me, a successful writer? What measures success? Money and popularity? Dare I dream of joining the ranks of Roberts and Rowling? I reread my half-dozen nightly pages and slink back to reality.

The truth is, I write because I must. I'll continue regardless of compensation. I'm vain enough to think I've got something worth saying and altruistic enough to work to bring enjoyment into this world. I guess selling out, in terms of print runs, is something I aspire to but achieving that reality seems just out of reach.

Perhaps one day that Call will come. With my luck, its form will be an editor holding a contract in one hand and a revision letter in the other. Will addressing those changes require selling out?

Let me rephrase the question: Can an editor possibly improve my writing? Can I learn from them? Will they help me sell some of my work?

Don't get me wrong, there are limits to the changes I'll make. These are my stories after all and I have a strong sense of how they should be told. But if an editor can polish them to the point where they fly off bookstore shelves, so much the better. In the end, that's the sellout I hope to achieve.