Shifting metrics*

Given the whole end-of-year vibe, I’ve been looking back on my working year. I came across an infographic I put together at the end of 2019 [click on it to enlarge] and was interested to see just how much my working patterns have changed in the past few years.

As you can see, that year I worked on 26 different projects – that’s a lot of smallish jobs even for a freelancer. Being able to work on a variety of different things can be one of the big benefits of being freelance – variety being the spice of life and all that – but it also brings problems and isn’t always very productive, what with all the time wasted getting started on each new job (an issue I’ve written about before here).

I also delivered quite a few talks and workshops, both in-person and online. As someone who spends most of their time working alone at home, doing talks is a great way to get out and interact with people. It’s something I enjoy doing and it generally gives me a real buzz and a lift. It’s also, however, not always especially profitable.  Talks, especially at in-person events, take up a huge amount of time in preparing the talk, organizing travel arrangements, travelling, then time at the event itself. Although most of the talks I did that year were paid for in some form by publishers, some only covered expenses and those with fees attached almost never covered at the actual amount of time involved.

This year couldn’t have been more different!

For most of my working year, I’ve been working on a single long-term lexicography project, which I’ve absolutely loved! I started my ELT publishing career as a full-time lexicographer, and I continued working predominantly on learner’s dictionaries for about 7 years. I then started moving into other materials writing projects for a mix of reasons, in part because I wanted a change and a bit more variety, but also because work in lexicography was becoming sparser. Over the years, I’ve kept a foot in the lexicography camp, with occasional dictionary-related projects here and there. This is the first time for a while I’ve been able to really get my teeth into a big project though and I’m loving being back in my wordy niche.

It hasn’t been my only work this year though, there have been a number of other shorter jobs too. I wrote a focus paper for OUP about using learner’s dictionaries that was published in October and is available to download from the OUP website. I spoke at IATEFL in Belfast about some work I’d done (in 2021) on the new edition of Work on Your Idioms and I followed that up with an article about idioms for MET. I also did a sensitivity read for a new edition of an exam book, flagging up anything that might be potentially offensive or dated or that might need rethinking.

And it’s been another busy year in my role with the Hornby Trust. With several dictionary research projects finishing early in the year, I was involved in working with the researchers to edit their reports ready for publication on the Trust’s website [you can read them here]. In the summer, there were new proposals to go through and discuss with my fellow ASHDRA panel members via Zoom. We interviewed a number of the successful candidates, also via Zoom, to discuss the details of their proposals and to suggest a few tweaks. There were presentations from ASHDRA researchers at the Euralex conference in July, which I followed online. And last month, the first report from the latest cohort of ASHDRA projects came in for editing. We’d hoped to finally have an in-person meeting of the ASHDRA panel in London, but plans were thwarted by train strikes! Keeping fingers crossed an upcoming date in January can go ahead.

My favourite project of 2022 though has to have been my weather scarf. I’ve been knitting two rows a day all year in a colour based on the temperature here in Bristol at midday; blues for cold temperatures, greens for mild weather, and yellows and oranges for hot days. It’s been a moment of mindfulness each day, mostly in the space between leaving my desk for the day and starting on cooking the evening meal. It’s also made me much more aware of the weather. According to the Met Office, 2022 is set to be the hottest year ever in the UK, with record high temperatures in the summer – when I had to break into my 31°C+ dark red wool – but also much milder than average temperatures across the year – I didn’t drop back down into turquoise wool (below 10°C) until the end of November. I know I’ve inspired a few friends to create their own scarves for 2023, so I’m really looking forward to following their progress.

I’ll be starting off 2023 still happily in my lexicography groove and I have a talk accepted for IATEFL in Harrogate in April. Otherwise, I’ll be on the look-out for other interesting projects and opportunities to fit in along the way. I’d like to do some more talks, including some in-person events (ideally that don’t involve flying) if I can get myself organized to submit some proposals. I’m not making any big plans or resolutions because the first half of the year, at least, is looking likely to be a time of big upheavals outside of work. I’ll continue to tick along in my wordy niche and keep posting about words and language usage that piques my interest – *including that word metrics from the title of this post.