crunch time

when i was still working for my former employer, late october and november was always the worst part of the year. the reason for this is that management would make a promise to upper management that we would publish x number of books that year. however, books would always slide further and further down the schedule, and by 4th quarter, it would always be a struggle to hit that number (sometimes it would be a struggle to even get close). consequently, every year we would end up in a mad dash to push as many titles out the door as possible before year-end. because of the nature of the schedule, this inevitably meant my department would be working long hours in october and november. (other departments would feel the crunch earlier or later, depending on their place in the workflow.)

now that i'm freelance, and am not currently doing any work for that company, i didn't figure i would be hit by the big november crunch this year. yet, here i find myself working on two assignments for two different publishers, and both are quite adamant that it all must be finished by the end of the month. for one of these assignments, i know the timing is a coincidence: the product just came out, and they need the book on the shelves ASAP. for the other assignment, i don't really know why it must be completed in such a hurry, but i suspect it's a scheduling and budgeting issue, because there's nothing remotely time-sensitive about the subject matter. (in other words, i think i got stuck in some other company's crunch.)

what this all means is that over the next couple weeks, i'm going to be busting my ass trying to get all my editing done. yes, i'll even be working furiously over the thanksgiving holiday weekend. getting it all done in time is an achievable goal—otherwise i wouldn't have agreed to take both assignments—but it does mean i won't have a lot of spare time until december.

as such, i'll probably be neglecting this blog somewhat over the next couple weeks, though i'll try to at least pop regularly. on the plus side, however, i'll have a lot of money in my checking account come december.¶