October 2007
In between all the day to day life of school runs and getting used to living in Tokyo, I have been offered more freelance writing work. This is for the same people I write the Tokyo Tales articles for, as well as the garden articles by "Rose Henfrey", and a couple of quarter page "fillers".
Each month two extra pieces are required. These are classified as "Time of Year" and a "General Article". So for each month I have to find a subject to write about relating to that month – not quite as easy as it sounds. For example, October would probably be Halloween, November – Guy Fawkes, something Christmassy for December and so on. That's OK for this year, but what about next year? I need to write these about 2 or 3 months ahead of the relevant month. Lots and lots of research required – unpaid research – I only get paid for the final article.
The "General" article is a little easier to plan as, in theory, it could be about anything. However, as I used to run one of the local, community magazines that these articles are to go in, I know that a carefully chosen article can attract much needed advertisers. Therefore, it makes sense to write an article each month that the clients can include in their magazine to entice advertisers from a certain field. I write about things like tree surgeons, history of driving and the Highway Code (to attract driving schools) and alternative therapy articles, amongst many, many other things!
As well as the monthly article writing, I also receive all the other content required for the site: articles from other writers, puzzles and quizzes. All of which need to be proofed, edited where necessary, formatted for instant inclusion into the magazines, relevant photos sourced and finally create the various different types of files required by the users. After all this has been done I then start uploading them onto the site. The web-mastering of the version of the site at this point was very clunky and tedious. It required me to upload each file one by one - four files for each subject, write the code number on a scrap of paper, then put the code numbers on site in the relevant categories.
It keeps me VERY busy, often long into the night as many of the articles arrived just before the boss's deadline. But I enjoy it.
I try not to let it interfere with learning about my new home town though, but I'm so busy that I no longer have time to learn Japanese.
