In early August, I agreed to sub-contract a cool program for Pearson's Wall Street English via a small LLC in New Mexico. My responsibility? To generate 1,000+ grammar and vocabulary exercises for a beginner-advanced online English course set to roll out in China some time next year. Start date for my part of the project? September 26.

The date came ... and went ... And I, who am trying to scrape together enough to pay the bills and not dip too deeply into our rapidy shrinking savings account, began to panic. Fortunately, a few larger clients for whom I'd done web copy revisions and additions paid me - and that covered September's mortgage, car payment and my little guy's preschool tuition (and a few odds and ends). 

And still I waited. I reminded myself each night and morning that I absolutely could earn a decent living freelance writing/ editing & adjuncting at Cedar Crest, and that a more nebulous income still beat the stress from my previous job - and the non-financial rewards of spending more than two hours a day with my 4 1/2 year old far, far outweighed the drawbacks.

I must say, however, that it'd be nice to have health insurance again.

So finally, New Mexico called, by way of Germany. Turns out the "middle" man needed to bow out. Where did that leave me? I determined not to panic - not an easy feat. Pan's floodwaters threatened to rise higher than my calves, but I trusted that everything would work out.

And so I waited, the start date now three weeks past due. On Thursday, a woman from Pearson's Content Creation divison called and followed up our conversation with a torrent of emails. Pearson's rewritten several scripts, realized more activities are needed to hit all unit objectives, and oh, by the way, the time to complete the project's shrunk by a month and doubled in scope.

Now the floodwaters reach mid-chest, but these waters teem with data, metrics, matrices, and a prototype deadline of October 24. Twenty levels with at least 100 exercises per level equals a minimum of 2,000 exercises to write between tomorrow and project end date- March 15. 

I determined several years ago that it was time to transition from full time to part time teaching and incorporate education writing into my life. 

And so it begins!