Work, Not School

This morning I had a phone conference with a client for whom I have been writing quite a bit of content. It has been a pleasant job. One of those that has picked me up a bit out of my comfort zone and really put my brain to work in an attempt to a) understand what I was writing about and b) write about it so that other people would understand it too.

As we are nearing the end of this particular client's project, the jobs have lost the leisurely pace, a bit. Last week I was writing and rewriting (not my originals, but for other writers) many pieces to help them meet deadline. This week there have been a few more loose ends to tie up. Today I spent over an hour on the phone with one of their subject gurus in order to gain an understanding of some of those very important loose ends.

I'm not always my best on the telephone. I'm definitely a person who thinks and translates best through my fingertips, not my mouth. So when I'm having a conversation (or listening to a lecture) and a person pauses for questions, I don't always come up with them even though I know there are probably good questions that should be asked. Instead, I am a furious and detailed note taker and I usually manage to give myself enough prompts that I can almost conjure up the person's voice in my head again as I attempt to fill those notes out and make sense of them.

So this morning, I was doing my best to stay tuned in to my lesson. I felt myself zoning out, at one point, and I kind of had this funny little deja vu feeling. I was in school, once again, and listening to a lecture on a subject I really didn't want to know much more about. "I hate this class," I heard myself thinking. I was able to pull myself out of it pretty quickly. I'm getting paid for this lecture, after all.

But it felt kind of funny, for a moment, and many hours and four articles later, I'm feeling pretty darned pleased with the knowledge I have gained. Not only did I apparently get enough out of this morning's lecture to turn around and "teach" someone else about it, I think I've gained some knowledge that I can probably use, but would never have explored if the opportunity to write about it hadn't been presented to me.