“It never rains but it pours.” Isn’t that how the proverb goes?
As I’ve written in this space before, I’ve been struggling under the weight of a massive editing/rewriting project with a must-finish deadline of the first week in December…which isn’t that far off. I’ve avoided, for the most part, seeking out other large gigs (basically writing or editing books), confining myself to this massive project and only short-form tasks.
When someone I spoke with on business mentoned to me a ghostwriter who had taken her money to write a book from her outline and notes, then turned the book back as “impossible” but didn’t return her money, I couldn’t help myself. Besides deploring this other ghost’s ethics, I asked the woman if she’d like me to take a look at her document and see if I could do anything with it. I told her I couldn’t even peruse the document at the moment, but if she’d send it to me I’d look at it when I had a moment…although, I told her, I couldn’t work on it till January. She was agreeable and said there was no rush. That was at least a month ago. Recently I looked at her outline and notes. It looked perfectly workable to me. I called her up and told her so but reminded her that it would be January before I got to it. She was delighted.
Meanwhile—before I even looked at her document—I got a call from a long-time intermittent client, for whom I had ghosted several books in the past. He wanted another book—maybe several. I told him he’d have to wait till January. He was agreeable.
Then I got a call from a prospective new client to either ghost or edit a book. We met, we talked, and since he didn’t want to key the book in and I didn’t want him to dictate it to me, I suggested Dragon dictation software, with me editing. I told him I couldn’t start till January.
There’s a publisher who wants to talk to me. I had sent her four books of mine for consideration, and it may just be that she wants to accept one of these and wants to make an offer, but I have a sneaking suspicion she may want me to write something especially for her publishing house. We’ll see when we finally have the conversation.
Oh, and then there’s the publisher who’s looking for as many 1000-word booklets as I can turn out for a project of his. As many as I have time for. Time? What’s that?
And let’s not overlook the long-time client whose 90,000-plus-word book is waiting to be edited. I told him I would do it as soon as I got this major project out of the way. There goes December…along with proofing the layouts and the page proofs of the major project once I’ve finished the writing and editing, and also I’ve allocated a part of December to some of those 1000-word booklets.
As for January—send in the clones! And as we have a bit over two months till then, who knows what other projects will pop up in the interim.
It never rains but it pours.