The Reluctant Ed

As acting editor of Dynamic Business for one week, soon to be permanent editor for Dynamic Export, and current editor for The Project Manager, can I just say: "ALL I WANTED WAS TO BE A WRITER"?

Finished my TAFE assignment on Sunday. I'd better get a bloody good mark for it because I spent about six hours on it when I thought it would take two. Things to ease up, though, as there is a mid-semester break, so I get my Tues and Thurs evenings back for a fortnight.

Spent the entire week rectifying Lynn's gross incompetence. First of all, I don't think she sub-edited any of the articles that went into design, which meant that when they came back from design, Melissa (new deputy) and I had to double-check everything from spelling and grammatical errors to style inconsistencies as well as the usual 'text in design' anomalies.

Then, no one knew what the hell she'd arranged for the next issue because I kept getting enquiries about stuff I knew nothing about. Possible commissions, possible stories, interviews etc. I had to field calls all week while pushing through design approvals for a magazine I'd hitherto only submitted articles to, without any of the procedural stuff.

In between I was expected to do my regular job, which was writing three features for the June issue (deadline was on Friday, I've done one and a half) and editing TPM (am okay for commissions but not okay for stories I will write myself). Did I mention: "ALL I WANTED WAS TO BE A WRITER"? Not a sub-editor, not an editor...

And that's pretty much all I did all week. The only two days I didn't work overtime was Tues and Thurs and that was because I had TAFE. Otherwise, I put in an extra eight hours work on the other three days, and spent two hours transcribing stuff for one of my feature stories today.

Anyone want to give me a day to do something fun?

P.S: At least we have appointed a new editor - Jen Bishop. She starts Monday. Whew!