Review: Worth Every Nickel
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 31, 2014
"Trevathan sat at his battered Underwood and stared at a blank sheet of paper.  The paper had gone up a dollar a ream in the past year, and he could swear they'd cheapened the quality in the process.  Everything cost more, he thought, except his own well-chosen words.  They were still trading steadily at a nickel a piece."James Trevathan just earned a nickel a word for the detective story he sold to the magazine.He's been earning a nickel a word for the last twenty years.Now he sits nervously in front of his well-groomed editor asking for a raise.  After the editor lists all the reasons that the magazine cannot afford to pay its writers more money, he suggests that Trevathan might want to "branch out in a new direction."And that, my friends, is exactly what Trevathan does...Block has crafted a fun and witty short story.  It is sparse and lean, but it gets the job done.Currently $2.99, you do the math to figure out how much YOU'LL be paying per word.