The social worker for whom I edit court reports asked me today if I wanted to expand my involvement in her work. Meaning, instead of simply editing her reports, would I be interested in also handling the interviews of parties in child custody cases and then actually writing the reports myself.

She finds this part of her work boring, she said, and this part of the report needn't be written by a licensed GAL (guardian ad litem). We talked a bit about it and then she asked me to think about an hourly rate I thought was reasonable.

Unfortunately, when I first responded to her ad on Craig's list last spring, I gave her a very low price (which probably amounts to around $20/hr), mainly becus I wanted the job, and didn't realize the work would continue.

But it still would be more money.

I looked at recent jobs I'd done for her and see that my average charge for copy editing brief reports was only $70, so I used that as a starting point, since writing something from scratch would take a bit more time, plus I'd need to allow up to an hour for the phone interview.

So I suggested a flat fee (so I don't have to be bothered with always tracking my time) of $125. Her response was, is that for interviewing one party or two (meaning, the husband and wife).

Gosh, it sure wouldn't mean for two since if it did, I'd actually be making less money writing the reports and conducting the interviews than I am now simply copy editing her reports.

So after clarifying that it was just for one interview/report, I'll see what she says. It would be great to get more work out of this.

Tomorrow I start editing the business ethics manuscript for another local author.

I am very pleased that after several years of extremely sporadic freelance work, I have been fairly consistently busy these last few weeks. It's sort of like a giant snowball effect, except that it takes a very long time for that snowball to start rolling.

I have banana-walnut bread in the oven.

I got around to seeing The Kite Runner via Netflix, a very touching movie about two childhood friends which will really pull on your heartstrings. It's Iranian, with subtitles. I'd recommend it highly.

I also caught a matinee at the $2 movie theater called Moonrise Kingdom. A truly delightful movie perfect for kids in the 7-10 year age bracket, but the kind of movie that I greatly enjoyed as an adult, too. Maybe becus it makes you nostalgic. As an added treat, there were a few stars whose names you will recognize: Bruce Willis, Harvey Kietel, Bill Murray and the woman cop from Fargo! It was really a lot of fun.

After the movie yesterday, I met The Author at a coffee shop. NOT Starbucks.

Today I got a really nice plaid flannel duvet cover from Amazon, along with some other things, all for free through my online forums. I got the flannel partly becus I knew the cats would love it, although last night they caught a live mouse, which conveniently ran inside my sneaker to hide, and then I quickly grabbed the sneaker and dumped it outside.

Alas, now my one sneaker has "koodies" and I won't be able to wear it until it's sat in below freezing temperatures for at least two weeks. And I don't want to touch the cats much either, except to pat their heads, which puzzles them.