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My cup runneth over...
Jun. 23rd, 2003 10:35 pmIn a big way, and it's a good thing that circumstances appear to be conspiring - at least for the moment - to keep things on an even keel.
I received a call in the morning from a client who does not call often, but tends to have large gobs of work when he does call. Today's contact was no exception. Seven documents, totaling about 120 pages, or between 40 and 60 thousand words. It started out as a tentative job this morning ("Would you be able to handle it?") and became a solid assignment later in the day. The end client's deadline was stated as "as soon as possible" (surprise!), so the client wants my input as to when I can have the job done.
I cannot begin to describe the agony (ugh! 60,000 words!) and the ecstasy (wow! 60,000 words!) that cross my mind when I look at the neat pile I printed out. The subject matter is something that should actually go pretty quickly, except for all the equations.
In general, the faster I do this job, the better, as this client is one of a select few that pays within 10 days or so of the invoice. On the other hand, I'm not going to do anyone any favors (least of all, myself) if I burn myself out trying to do some unimaginably large number of words per day.
I owe my client an answer tomorrow, so I can sleep on it.
In other news, the last piece of the assignement I worked on this past weekend got done in fairly short order this afternoon, and before the 60K inquiry became a job, I accepted a 9-page assignment that I accepted from another excellent client and which I'm to squeeze in front of the other job I accepted Sunday from the same client.
(In a fit of I-don't-know-what, I finished my first pass through the 9-pager a few minutes ago, which leaves me with the item accepted Sunday (with, theoretically, a new Thursday deadline) and the 60K job left to do, and the weekend work and the 9-pager left to review. My count for the day stands at just over 5,000 words.)
* * * It occurs to me that I have almost no life outside of work when I get into this mode. I snuck a little "life" in this morning by finishing off Clive Cussler's Flood Tide, which delivered on the usual Cussler formula: a really evil bad guy with ambitiously evil plans and nearly infinite resources gets foiled by a "mere" marine researcher who collects antique cars and airplanes in his noncopious "spare" time. (It's funny, though, Cussler's stories are so smoothly written and plotted that I actually feel a little like I've been had by the time I finish one of his books. Or maybe it's not the plotting, but the way the hero always comes up smelling like a rose - in spades, so to speak. Anyway, I no longer have this problem of putting the book down...)
* * * Feht stopped by a couple of days ago to ask my advice, which I found unusual. Also to tell me he was taking a couple of weeks off (there being no work in his "direction" right now) to go visit science fiction writer Jack Vance in California. Feht is an intense Vance fan (as in "fanatic"), and has translated a good half-dozen (if not more) of Vance's books into Russian. If I understand correctly, Feht's effort initially was for the sheer challenge of it and was largely driven by his admiration for the writing; it turns out there may be a market for such writing, but it's way too early to speculate on that.
* * * Yesterday, we joined Doug and Kat at their new house, along with the rest of the gang, for another session of CashFlow. In fact, we played two games, in the second of which, Doug and I teamed and volunteered to be the Doctor. As I may have mentioned before, it's tough being the Doctor because despite a large income, the sawbones also has high expenses, which makes it hard to negotiate the first hurdle towards winning the game (that obstacle is: "get out of the Rat Race," which means to develop a passive income that exceeds expenses). Galina and I had a very nice time at Doug and Kat's, and I think everyone else did, too. (I/we probably ought to spend more time there, actually, as Doug is full of good ideas and questions.)
Time to retire for the night.
Cheers...
I received a call in the morning from a client who does not call often, but tends to have large gobs of work when he does call. Today's contact was no exception. Seven documents, totaling about 120 pages, or between 40 and 60 thousand words. It started out as a tentative job this morning ("Would you be able to handle it?") and became a solid assignment later in the day. The end client's deadline was stated as "as soon as possible" (surprise!), so the client wants my input as to when I can have the job done.
I cannot begin to describe the agony (ugh! 60,000 words!) and the ecstasy (wow! 60,000 words!) that cross my mind when I look at the neat pile I printed out. The subject matter is something that should actually go pretty quickly, except for all the equations.
In general, the faster I do this job, the better, as this client is one of a select few that pays within 10 days or so of the invoice. On the other hand, I'm not going to do anyone any favors (least of all, myself) if I burn myself out trying to do some unimaginably large number of words per day.
I owe my client an answer tomorrow, so I can sleep on it.
In other news, the last piece of the assignement I worked on this past weekend got done in fairly short order this afternoon, and before the 60K inquiry became a job, I accepted a 9-page assignment that I accepted from another excellent client and which I'm to squeeze in front of the other job I accepted Sunday from the same client.
(In a fit of I-don't-know-what, I finished my first pass through the 9-pager a few minutes ago, which leaves me with the item accepted Sunday (with, theoretically, a new Thursday deadline) and the 60K job left to do, and the weekend work and the 9-pager left to review. My count for the day stands at just over 5,000 words.)
Time to retire for the night.
Cheers...
