…yeah: like that. For the past ten days, I’ve been so swamped with paying work that I haven’t been able to keep up with anything else. Hence: no posts here. Not because I’ve forgotten you, dear readers, but because there simply isn’t any time to do anything else but read copy, feed myself, feed the dogs, and fall into the sack.
Yesterday evening I was just wrapping up a Chinese math paper when in came another one! I haven’t looked at it yet (that’s next on the list of to-do’s, after “write post for P&S Press”), but this author is given to long, complex projects that require many thousands of words to explicate. So I expect it will take the better part of a week to plow through the thing and then go back and proofread edits.
Not that one should complain… If this much work came in all the time, week in and week out, I could make a decent living off The Copyeditor’s Desk. But it doesn’t. In my experience, the copyediting biz is a feast or famine affair. A year ago this spring, work poured in steadily for four solid months. I was never without a project. In first-quarter 2017, I earned as much as I normally earn in an entire year.
Good thing. Because the work stopped when summer started. I hardly saw another project for the rest of the year…and that wasn’t until fall. Nor has enough work to matter come in this year — not until the past month or so. Now…lordie! I’m so swamped that if I had another editor who could convert Chinglish to academic English (most people can’t even convert air-headed English jargon to acceptable academic English…), I would farm out some of this work. My associate editor has started a new graduate program — this on top of two full-time jobs! — and so somehow I doubt she will have a lot of time to cope with my workload.
😀
So, I haven’t had a minute to write the next chapter of Ella’s Story, nor have I even had time to fiddle with posting copy that’s already written for The Complete Writer and If You’d Asked Me.
But eventually, the floodwaters will drop, and I’ll be back here to post my ramblings.