Raining and Pouring

I'm about to be laid off from my full-time position. When things pick up, I'm supposed to be hired back under better terms. Well, that news certainly didn't make my day. And, I'm still trying to decide if I want to be an employee or independent contractor.

With severance, I'll be all right for a couple of months, but it's scary. So, I let some other writers and editors know I was looking for freelance work. I also answered ads to the e-mail lists--ads that I probably never would have bothered with before. As a result, I've proofed two articles for a journal this week, gotten an editing assignment from a publishing company, and a substantive edit job with an author. An online author friend recommended me to one of the people she works for, and within just a few minutes of receiving her e-mail telling me she'd done that, I got an e-mail from the person to whom she'd suggested me. On Monday she's sending me a contract to write a middle-grade nonfiction book about the Boston Tea Party! Finally, I'll be writing about something I have knowledge of.

Then the strangest thing happened. I got an e-mail with an article attached from a professor in Hong Kong. He told me that he'd gotten my info from another professor, for whom I had edited an article. Frankly, I have only the vaguest idea who he's talking about. Oh well, I guess if you're just a little patient . . . .