Retirement (22)

I don't know how many times I've threatened to retire. (My friends just laugh at me when I raise the subject.) At the moment, though, I am sorely—sorely—tempted finally to follow through on the... let's call it not a threat, but a promise. 

For those of you who do not know, I am a freelance editor and proofreader. I started out working with the University of California Press—I wrote about that here—but over the years I've had a variety of clients. Lately they include most regularly Yale University Press, the Getty Museum, and occasionally UC Press still (only occasionally because the editors I worked with most of my career have, yes, retired! so I am no longer well known there, which is fine). I try to not work all that much, and often turn down jobs, but I seem to continue to have a steady stream of work.

The last six weeks I have spent working hard on three projects, none of which were especially fulfilling. One was on a Venezuelan photographer whom I found vaguely interesting. I am just about to finish up the enormous technical book on bronze (which I mentioned here; I am eight pages from being done, but it's all bibliography—tiny type, and plot? forget it—so I've bailed for today and will finish and send it off in the morning). And any day now I expect a book back that I did a heavy edit on, and the author informs me that there are "MANY changes." Fortunately, the in-house editor at Yale has told him that I will not be able to reedit, so I am hoping that I will be able to restrain myself and simply accept the author's changes and be done with it. (I of course want a book to be as good as it can be, and this one needed a lot of attention. I fear it will end up a bit of a mess if I don't reedit, but frankly, I'm done with it. The edit was good—I actually read the entire thing in a clean version, something I almost never do—so if the author has meddled, well, that's got to be on him.)

That very attitude, in fact, is part of what is making me think, Maybe it's finally actually time. Sure, I sometimes learn interesting things from the books I edit, and it's nice to bring in a little extra money. But I can learn interesting things simply by reading, and we don't need the extra money. Why don't I just live a little?

Why don't I, for example, do some of my own writing?

Back in October I signed up for a nonfiction writing workshop through Orion magazine, thinking it might jumpstart me to do my own work. The class, led by Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, kicked off two weeks ago, and I have enjoyed (in my spare time, ha ha!) noodling on a fragmented essay about death, which I started a while back and have dusted off and added to for this class. I've got a couple of other essays started, but they've been back-burnered for quite some time. Maybe it's time to dust them off, too. And start hanging out in coffeehouses—something I keep yearning to do—playing with words, cultivating inspiration, finding out what I think. 

Sure!

I do have a bit of fear that I'll end up like this guy:

But probably, actually, I don't really have to worry about that. And even if my writing ambitions don't get off the ground, there's always the garage to clean and hikes to go on. 

One more week to go, assuming this cleanup comes in tomorrow, as I expect. And then... we'll see. I might be ready, finally. (Though I'll probably keep proofreading for the Getty. It's strangely grounding, and often interesting—the jobs are very often catalogs for upcoming shows. And even if we don't need the paycheck, I like getting a bit of fun money every so often. But: no more editing.)

11/28: As if the gods were mocking me, today I got a query from the curatorial director of the Leeds Art Foundation in NYC (referred by the director of publishing, exhibitions, and design at Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY, with whom I've worked exactly once) asking if I'm available to proofread a two-volume work about Samuel Yellin, "the most important ironworker ever in the US." The two volumes: 474 and 576 pages, respectively. That's over a thousand pages!!! Granted, he said it's "fairly heavily illustrated," and when I googled this Yellin fellow, I find lots and lots of images. He was prolific. So yeah, the gods were listening—they brought me a potential proofreading project; and they're definitely testing me. I haven't responded yet....