to relieve any concerns: i will not be kidnapping beth, i have a husband, pets and elderly parents to take care of and i do not wish to add “feed the kidnapped freelance copywriter” to my list of things to do.

also, i am only an aspiring writer, in real life i have loads of business admin and small-business marketing experience. i’m clear that my job with beth is the business stuff and not the writing stuff. i just figure, as steph says, i can learn something from beth while making sure the admin stuff is handled.

bottom line is we’ll see how it goes.

At the same time, it is only for four hours (so far). It’s not as though she’s going to be taking over. And it sounds as though you’ve gone with your gut. Which is a good thing.

You had great advice, but I’m still impulsive. I talked to one woman, an editor for a community newspaper, and she’s coming Friday for a “first date” (as she called it). She wants to write for a living, and she’s organized, smart and free on Fridays, which is the best time for me.

I ended up with about 30 resumes, so I quickly took the ad down and wrote back to the other candidates. There were probably another three interesting ones in the group, and it’s a shame I couldn’t hire everyone.

If I fail to put up another post by Monday, I’ve probably been kidnapped by my new assistant. Please call someone.