It's time to say a big "Thank You" to all of you who supported the Freelancers site in 1999, and today in 2000. (NB: Some images below will take much too long to load; I'll attempt to reduce in size later to make them load faster.) 

To mention one or two recent comments: 

Thanks to Liz: 

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Freelancers Guestbook Submission  
Name: Liz Taylor  
Telephone Number:   

Found Freelancers site by: By search engine   
Comments: A fantastic site. Very impressed with the content and extent of the details given.  It gave me everything I wanted to know and I need look no further for my information.  
THANK YOU   

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Thanks to Celia: 

Dear Bill  
   
I have only just received your course material due to the vagaries of the Spanish postal system no doubt, and am presently reading my way through MS1. I just have to say at the outset that despite having already completed one course (and from previous correspondence you know the company) at twice the price of yours, I have learned far more in the first few pages of your excellent and so very professional package. I hope I can do it justice.  
(BTW - apart from the deliberate errors in the text, I believe I have found one on page 10 - in the "answers". . .  

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Thanks to Dennis: 

Bill, 

Well done!  I received the course today and it is very professionally constructed, informative, interesting, and easy to read.  I chuckled though when I found a couple of "gremlins" within your text:  Page 4 (blue folder/US version), the paragraph that begins "To recap:..."   
... 
Your effort, Bill, is obvious and I'm eager to complete the course.... 

"You da' Man!!* 

*(A southern touch! Ed.) 
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A local bookshop is selling some of its books at £2 each, whether they cost 20p, £10 or £30. I have already found some bargains and books well worth reading if I ever get the time. 

There is one, Kelly's Key To Horace, Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Seculare, published by W. & G. Foyle Ltd, 119-125 Charing Cross Road, London WC2, no date given, that may be a treasure. 

From Ode XXIX (To Maecenas) 

"A wise deity shrouds future events in gloomy night, and smiles if a mortal is solicitous beyond the law of his being. Remember to make a proper use of the present hour. The future glides on after the manner of a river, now running calmly in the middle of its channel down to the Tuscan sea, now rolling along in its course corroded stones, and trunks of trees torn away, and flocks and houses, not without the noise of echoing mountains and of the neighbouring wood, when the fierce flood excites its tranquil waters. He and only he will live master of himself and happy, who has it in his power every day to say -- "I have lived; tomorrow let father Jove envelope the heaven either with a dark cloud or with sunshine; he cannot, however render ineffectual that which is past, nor can he change and undo whatever the fleeting hour shall have once carried with it. . ." 

Perhaps more of this another time. Some of the books bought today included: 

The Outline of Literature, edited by John Drinkwater, a quite beautiful 1010-page book, see scanned picture of "The Lament for Icarus" by Herbert Draper, 1863-1920, oil on canvas, first exhibited in 1898. While Daedalus made a safe landing, Icarus of course flew so close to the sun that "the wax which affixed his wings melted and he fell into the sea." Here the ocean nymphs are seen lamenting over his dead body. This picture is in the book. I remember seeing it years ago in the Tate Gallery in London. Just amazing! 
 

The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature - out fell some postcards, one of Hermes and the infant Dionysos by Praxiteles, 4th Century BC.  

This famous statue came from the Temple of Hera in Olympia, and dates to c. 330 BC. I learnt tonight (from the Internet, of course) that Praxiteles and other famous sculptors often used their favourite courtesans to sit as models for their statues; that demure statue of Aphrodite might not have had such an innocent history after all.  

The Student's Greece: A history of Greece from the earliest times to the Roman Conquest, John Murray, 1902 

Card Games Up-to-Date, published in London, 10-11 Red Lion Court, EC4 -- for gambling! 

Hellenic Traveller, A guide to the ancient sites of Greece and the Aegean. 

A Dictionary of Proverbs 

The Notebook of Hephaestus and Other Poems by William Oxley 

Dictionary of Wines and Spirits, e.g. Buck's Fizz, invented at Buck's Club, London in 1921 by Pat McGarry, the barman: one-third freshly-squeezed orange juice, two-thirds non-vintage champagne, and a teaspoon of grenadine; a delicious mid-morning or late-night drink. 
 
An eclectic selection with a Greek flavour.  
 

A Happy and Prosperous 2000! 

How was your party? Did the earth move for you as another millennium rolled over? That was quite an experience. 
 

People are already talking about a new era of peace but that remains to be seen. Do you have any special millennium thoughts? Send an e-mail and see and share them here. 

And now, it's back to work!! 

Check back soon to see more updates to other sections. Meanwhile, I'm so delighted with this. More good news. 
 

Hi Bill, 

I wish the same for you and your family.  Hope your Christmas was a merry one as well.  We had a nice quiet time at home--it felt weird not to be with my family this year, though. 

I've had four jobs so far with A... Publishing and am really enjoying the proofreading assignments for them.  I still have four tests out and plan to do some more marketing.  For now, A... is sending me a fair amount of work, but I would like to have one or two additional clients who send work regularly.  I think one to three clients is about all I can handle for now given that I can work about 4-6 hours a day. 

I have to say that your site and course were a great find.  It is great getting paid to read.  When I tell other people what I do, they can't believe it.  Sometimes I can't either. 

All the best, 

C.S. 

Initials used to preserve privacy. She's an inspiration. A positive way of looking at the world definitely helps! 

From the Editor: Recent News 

Wednesday, 22 December 99 

Just a note on some recent poetry I read and other items. The Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens is just a stone's throw away from the Acropolis. 

"Antiochus IV resumed construction of a great temple of the Olympian Zeus in Athens, that had been begun about 530 BC. The columns were made of Pentelic marble, in the Corinthian style. This enormous structure, the largest temple in Greece, was finally completed by the emperor Hadrian three centuries later, in the 2nd century AD. Its ruins can still be seen." 

Below is a poem recently discovered, by chance. I apologise as it has nothing to do with freelancing. Perhaps because I have been there and seen those columns, standing in the residue of eternity, that this poem seems to me strangely fitting to mark a millennium. The old gods have gone, coherence of history has vanished, yet the chiseled stone still speaks to us. 
 

 

I become envious of these cold, stone masses 
That have been standing here wordless for centuries now 
Listening to the sweet echo of past emotions. 

Nicolas Calas, 1907- 
A wonderful poem 

An interview I read recently that may be of interest, for those thinking about working from home. 

Interview: “Freelance At Home”  

An interview between Daniel D'Arezzo (Editor, FREELANCE New York) and Sam Lyons Elowitch (New York Freelancer) 

What kind of work do you do?  
I'm a freelance editor and typesetter. I have a specialty in academic publishing and am personally very interested and involved in Jewish subjects.  

What in your background led you to this work? 

I have a master's degree in Near Eastern Studies and have had a lot of exposure to academia. Prior to going freelance when my son was born, I worked full-time for a Jewish publisher in Hoboken as an editor. This experience gave me the contacts and experience that form the basis of my work now. 

Thanks to CMB for the kind thoughts in this e-mail, and Happy Christmas to you, Celia and all the very best for the millennium. 

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Dear Bill 
  
I have only just received your course material due to the vagaries of the Spanish postal system no doubt, and am presently reading my way through MS1. I just have to say at the outset that despite having already completed one course (and from previous correspondence you know the company) at twice the price of yours, I have learned far more in the first few pages of your excellent and so very professional package. I hope I can do it justice... 

>>>>>> 

More news in a few days. Ed. 

December 1999 - November 99 
 
There will be lots of wine drunk this Christmas and into the new millennium. I found some beautiful white wine that's perfect for January 1st or, better still, for hot summer days to come in 2000. Here's a story about it: 

Unearthing White Gold in the Aegean 

Sometimes you unearth wines that defy the logic of so-called terroir, and on even rarer occasions you taste things that make a mockery of the conditions they were made in. Both can be found on the Greek island of Santorini. 

In the far northern corner of this crescent of sun-baked lava and lotion-lathered tourists, a local maths teacher - Paris Segalas - runs a small winery just off the blackened beach. His company car (a rust-ridden Fiat) has more holes than Rab C. Nesbitt's vest and the wine-making equipment comes pretty close to the afore-mentioned garment's state of cleanliness. Add these aesthetics to the owner's non-existent wine-making qualifications and you would expect the result to be something closer to oxidised Irn Bru rather than quality wine. 

But clearly a weird form of oenological algebra is at work here. The white wine Sigalas gives me not only tastes crisp, clean and vibrant, but it also has a fine-tuned ping of acidity that completely belies the factor-15 conditions outside. What's more, he informs me that his wines are served in some of the finest restaurants in New York, Monaco and Athens. 

This small artisan producer is not the only surprise on Santorini - the entire island breaks the rules of conventional climate-quality wine relationships. The land here has levels of organic matter that would make most farmers resort to drinking from the bottle rather than trying to fill it. There is virtually no rainfall, the winds are regular and often fierce, and the luminosity bright enough to make sunblock essential even before breakfast. 

And yet all across the island low-lying vines can be found splayed across the land like green-fingered limpets. Many have been clinging on for more than 70 years and the historians think that vines were here even before the Phoenicians arrived. This insignificant dot on the viticultural map has the sort of rich legacy that makes the Bordelais wine-makers look like nouveaux riches. 

There are three reasons that wine-making has existed for so long in this harsh environment. The cool, regular, northerly "Meltemi" wind is one, the summer fog that leaves just enough moisture for vine survival is two, and Assyrtico is three. The last - a tough grape variety - seems to survive in the harshest environments and produces incredible levels of natural acidity despite being picked as early as mid-August. The bone-dry, intensely flavoured wine it delivers is, without doubt, one of the greatest undiscovered white wines of the world - one that could have remained undiscovered were it not for a man named Yanni Boutari. 

During the eighties, Boutari's wine company had been floated successfully on the stock market and, with cash to spare, he looked around for new places to spend it. 

Although Santorini's reputation had originally been built on its sweet Visanto - barrels of the stuff were exported to Russia in the 19th century - the style preferred by the locals was a high-alcohol, extremely dry wine. 

By the time Boutari arrived, the island's wine industry was in terminal decline. Growers were getting just 60 drachmae (about 10p) per kilogram for grapes that were being turned into a wine that made most tourists resort to ouzo. 

Facing strong opposition from local wine-makers - who even conspired to turn off the electricity supply during his first harvest so that vital cooling equipment would not work - Boutari attempted to dress Assyrtico in the right clothes and show what it could really do. 

With the vision of the wine-maker Yanni Paraskevopoulos - whose new winery, Gea, makes a stunning Santorini wine imported to the UK by Oddbins - a new style of drier, cleaner, lower-alcohol wine emerged. The decline was reversed, growers now receive almost three times the amount they did 10 years ago, and Assyrtico is being lauded as Greece's finest grape variety. 

There are now white wines being made on Santorini that can rightfully be counted with the world's best; not least the astonishing wines of Yanni (all wine-makers seem to be called Yanni) Argyros.  

For years, this unassuming man commuted between the building sites of Athens and his island winery - which still contains old Russian barrels in which his grandfather once made wine - in order to survive financially. 

Given the quality of his bone-dry, mineral-rich whites, his 20-year-old mahogany-coloured Visanto and his Tsiporo ) a sort of Greek grappa), it is criminal that this man is virtually unknown outside the Cyclades Islands, let alone beyond Greece. 

But word is starting to get out. One evening, while enjoying fresh rockfish high on Santorini's volcanic caldera, we were disturbed by the peace-breaching force of an American trying to buy wine for his Boston restaurant.  

"Whaddaya mean you don't have any '94 [sic] left?" he spluttered as if this was the Napa Valley rather than some outpost of wine production in the Aegean.  

The irony is that the very people whose dollars could provide a secure future for Santorini's wines are the ones who are destroying it through tourism. Vineyards with perfect sunny aspects unfortunately make nice sites for new apartments with perfect sunny vistas, and uncontrolled development is turning patches of green into patches of white with alarming speed. 

If someone does not step in to protect the land, and if young wine-makers and growers do not arrive to take over from the likes of Segalas and Argyros, the only vines this island will have left will be the dead ones that decorate the walls of holiday homes. 

Oddbins stock a piercing, crisp beauty called Gaia Thalassitis 1998 for £6.99. Buy some to savour if you can get hold of any. 
 

Footnote 

Occasionally I get asked to proofread or copyedit documents via the Internet. Just a few days ago I was asked by e-mail to quote for reading through the third draft of a thriller. The freelance job was worth about £350-£400, which would have been useful for Christmas, but I just did not have the time to take the work on. The good news is that there should be more and more of this kind of work becoming available for those who have gained some experience or have had training via a good course and who can take advantage of all that's coming on the Web. 

November 1999 

The story of Mike the sculptor continues. Although he sold one piece (the head and shoulders of a ram with curved horns carved in Bath stone), the hawk was not bought by anyone. Many admired it but no one was ready to part with £2000 ($3200) just before Christmas. Of course, were Mike famous or better known in the art world, people would be queueing up to buy it. 

November was a busy month for freelancers. Several who had taken the Freelancers course had written to publishers and had been sent tests to complete in return. All were successful. 

One I saw was relatively easy and the paperback was already in the shops! 
That's fine for checking your work before you send it back. Here is a short extract: 

"Where are you headed," asked the farmer. 
"Maybe I'll go west." 
"West!" the farmer was agitated. "Don't you know they call that wilderness the "Great American Desert?'" 

Nothing wrong here except you need to delete one of the quote marks and transpose a question mark with the single quote mark as follows. You have to have single within double quotes so the last line becomes: 

"Don't you know they call that wilderness the 'Great American Desert'?" 

Another test was kindly sent to me after I had volunteered to help out. It was just about the hardest test I have ever seen. I made some brief comments and sent it back, slightly ashamed that I did not have the free time to help, and also quietly disturbed because it was really hard, especially for a beginner. 

I was really delighted to hear he had been successful. I thought he would make the grade because of the quality of his queries and general standard. 

Here is an e-mail excerpt of the good news (Richard, I hope you won't mind sharing your good news, which you really deserve!): 

...................... 
Hello Bill, 

Many thanks for your detailed replies to my queries and for returning the test with your comments, which were very helpful. I certainly didn't expect you to go through the test yourself (it took me at least a week!), but I thought that you might be able to have a quick look and offer some guidance on presentation, as indeed you did. 

The good news is that I passed. I've selected some quotes from the letter which I received from the publishers this morning: 

'Please find enclosed a copy of your completed test. As you can see, there were very few corrections on my part... I have to say it was refreshing to receive a list of queries. You have no idea how many people randomly change names etc. without querying it first... we were also pleased with the bibliography, we realise that it is a tricky one... I look forward to working with you in the future.' 

So, your advice on queries and warning to take special care with the bibliography were spot on. I haven't been given a definite promise of work but it looks likely that they will use me when the next big rush comes early next year - I'll let you know! 

I'm sorry that it's taken so long for me to thank you, but I was waiting to let you know the result of the test.  

Best regards, etc. 

.................... 

That really is good news. When a publisher writes (after a test) and says: "I look forward to working with you..." it's "in the bag" - work will follow quite definitely.