Writing for Money

A few months ago we received a notice from the IRS. They had decided to continue charging us interest and penalties over that little misunderstanding we had back in 2008. We still thought that we were right, and it was thousands of dollars that they were asking for, so we decided to continue to fight them. We immediately contacted our tax guy and asked him what to do. He called up the IRS and got permission for us to plead our case (yes, you actually need to get permission before you can send them a letter).

So who was going to write the letter? Naturally that task fell to me. But I was daunted. I’ve written fiction contest entries that could theoretically win us some cash. That’s not daunting, though. That’s exciting. It gives me a feeling of hope. I’d never had to write something that could lose us money if it wasn’t good enough!

I had no choice, though. No one was going to write it for me. So I began the easy way: “Dear IRS, . . . ” I told them what great people we were and why we didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. I included everything our tax guy said to include, plus a few persuasive (I hope) lines of my own. Our tax guy approved it (with a change of salutation, of course), and we mailed it.

We can do nothing more now but wait for the reply and hope for the best. In the meantime I’m glad to be done with that terrible writing task, and I look forward to doing more blog posts and stories and silly rhymes. Those are the kinds of things I like to write. They might not make me any money, but at least they won’t cost me anything if they’re bad!