Contract Work

"Maynard stumbled over the slick, lichen cover rock. He was sure he had clambered over the same rock an hour before but who knew in this dense fog; he could barely see his hand in front of his face. If only he hadn't given in to that inquisitive urge to turn of the main highway and satisfy his curiosity. What a stupid decision that had been..."

"What a stupid decision? That's an understatement. Oh fuck, are they paying me enough to read this crap? No, they're not. Didn't even do basic spell/grammar check on this and now I'm supposed to do that and content edit?

"I can't even look at this, it's so full of mistakes. It is hurting my eyes, I want to put needles in them! Look at that screen, red, red, red, underlines, green, tick marks. Where am I supposed to put my edit notes, tell me that one.

"It's as bad as reading the Slantinel! Okay, fine, maybe not that bad. As bad as the New York Times, that once great grey lady who has sunk so far she buys copy from Huffpo/AOL.

"How much time did I budget for this anyway? One hundred twenty-one thousand words, single-spaced, 10.5 font. That comes out to 400 pages at a 12 font? I gotta get new glasses. Oh fuck, this turdlet isn't even a doc. The asswipe sent it as a pdf, now how am I going to work this? Enough. Where's my phone?

"Hey, Rik, I opened that project you subbed to me. Yeah, that one. Rik, did you look at it? No, Rik, not the word count, the content. Did you look at it? Didn't think so. It is so bad it is Braxton-Hicks contender. Fine, Bulwer-Lytton, dark and stormy night, yadda yadda.

"We agreed to what as my percent? Uhh huh. Well, I think we have to rethink this. It's a lot bigger than we were led to believe-and a whole lot uglier. Really.

"No, can't do that, not at this price point. Rik, it wasn't even spell-checked. I am staring at a checkerboard screen of red and black. Or maybe a backgammon screen, I dunno. Cribbage? Very not funny. So it's copy and content work. Fix the basic errors and then cut it down to ninety. That's a 25% cut. Which shouldn't be hard, having read the first paragraph. Easy deleting drivel, but making sense of it, seeing if there is a plot and character development here? I think the difficulty will be not cutting it by 75%.

"Rik, the protagonist is named Maynard. Do I really need to say more?

"Yeah, yeah, I love you, too. You're my hero. I'm your muffalato? In your dreams. Fine, get back to me later, big guy, would you? I've got youporn to watch, at least that doesn't make me ill. OMG, I can't believe it! Rik, Rik, it's the midget hooker! I'll send you the link. You're welcome. Well-cum. That, too.

"All right, I'll close this. There it is already.

"I love the smell of roasting flesh. It so much reminds me of bacon."

"I like this one. Great first line. Thank you, honey. Later."