
Saying multiple prayers to the gods of freelancing, I sent a whole load of pitches out and did some research on how to pitch properly. It seemed to work. I got good responses back, and suddenly there were articles to work on.Then I landed a small part-time contract too. Suddenly it was Easter, then school holidays again. And this past week, it has been chockablock.
This week I’ve been visiting wineries and meeting winemakers. If only we had scratch n sniff Internet – wineries smell amazing during vintage when the grapes are being crushed.

Through all of this was the knowledge that I desperately needed to get to the copy edit of my book, which was waiting in my inbox. On Friday, the publisher chased me about it.
So that’s what I’ve been doing today. I’ve gone through 243 pages of corrections, most of which required nothing more than a click to accept a minor punctuation or spelling change, but some of which required thinking and rewriting. There were 167 uses of the word ‘just’. Now there are (just) 64.
The week to come is no less chockers. Tomorrow (Sunday, the day of rest), I’m visiting a local food maven who is making ham using a leg of pork from our farm. She’s doing this with the head chef from Saffire Freycinet, voted the world’s best boutique resort, no less. I’ll be interviewing him and writing something, I know not what yet, for a publication, I know not which.

Next Sunday, I’m having the day off.