Will Write Simple for Money

Guess how I spent Valentine's Day?

At a JOB INTERVIEW!!!

I met today with a director of the Dalian AudioVisual Press, a sub-division of Tiange Media, a major media broker in these parts.

The AV Press is putting together a series of English textbooks for middle school students. Normally, the text of such books is an unholy combination of poorly-written schlep and blatant plagiarism. But Tiange media is a respectable business with high ambitions-- they don't want to plagiarize others' work, they want to make the books that others plagiarize.

So they need to create six semesters' worth of original text that's readable at the 7-9th grade level. That's where I come in. I'm the guy that gets to write this stuff: I will be the nameless and faceless author behind countless lesson texts that faithfully incorporate new vocabulary and exercise the present perfect tense.

Actually, I think I'll be really good at this. I've been doing some tutoring recently, and I generally wind up creating my own dialog-material that suits the student's needs and ability, and it's always a big hit. And if the writing by necessity will be so simple it's stupid, at least I'll have a chance to guide the content that millions of Chinese students will study. Philosophy, science, culture, history-- it's up to me. "Just don't write about Taiwan, okay?" the director said.

The pay's not bad and I can do it all from the coffee shop on my own time. He says there's a ton of work they can offer me, and I can start tomorrow if I provide an acceptable sample. If things go well, they have a lot of projects they'd potentially use me for, including being the voice-narrator for listening-exercise tapes and a bilingual host for a Learn English VCD/DVD series.


Now, to consummate the Valentine's Day experience--- a trip to the gym to "whale on my pecs" before returning home to cook myself a spaghetti dinner and enjoying it in the cold empty silence of my solitude.

(from the above paragraph, approximately tens words would be acceptable for use in my new writing job: now, to, a, the, on, home, it, in, of, my, and cold). sweet.