On Thursday I received this note from a client who hadn’t written since June:

Hello Beth,

I am sorry it has been so long since we last communicated. I have completed the taxing project and taken a few small vacations since we last traded emails.I am ready to give the newsletter the attention it requires; are you still interested in working with us?

Cheers.

In July I kind of wrote this client off, thinking that he had simply decided that he didn’t want to move forward. He had paid me a deposit which had covered most of the work, so I didn’t bother bugging him with “Just checking in” notes.

But I get more paranoid with other clients. When one of my biggest clients stopped sending me big projects, I became quite paranoid. I called a couple of times, and she said she was simply busy — too busy to figure out how I could help. I imagined that her boss had questioned what they were paying me — that her “Beth Budget” had disappeared. Or I figured I was missing the mark on her projects, and she was rewriting them after I sent them in (she rarely gives me much to go on, and I frequently guess about her needs then get little feedback).

I was nutso over the weekend with another project. This is a big, big opportunity for me — to write/edit a book with a well-known author and speaker. I’m “auditioning” for the job by rewriting the book’s intro, and the first draft went over very well at first, then they came back to say, “We’re not there yet.”

So I wrote and wrote and wrote Friday and Saturday. Not only do I have to please my clients, but they have to please the publisher, who is skeptical of using me, a writer who has never completed a full-length manuscript. The publisher is HUGE in the publishing world — I shouldn’t have Googled him — knowing how big he is freaks me out. This intro has to be perfect, and my clients told me getting it turned around was priority #1.

I sent the second draft to them on Saturday. They didn’t write to say they had received it. They didn’t write to say they loved it. They didn’t write at all. I imagined them (a husband and wife) looking at each other and shaking their heads — “This doesn’t cut it. Beth is just not up to the task.”

I finally texted them yesterday evening, and at 10 p.m. the wife texted back to say that the husband (the official author) would write me soon. UGH! Write me soon saying what? I checked my phone again and again, waiting for that little red light on my BlackBerry to show me that they hated/loved/tolerated my second draft.

I so wish I was more relaxed about the silence. What silence really means is that your clients are busy. Most of the time they really don’t hate you. They’re not plotting to cut you out of the project. They’re not out finding a new writer or designer or whatever. Maybe they don’t have the answer to the last question. Maybe other priorities have come up. Maybe they’ve been out of the office or entrenched in meetings. Or maybe they died (I worry about that). But they probably don’t hate you.

My best advice to make things happen? Pick up the phone. Last week I called a number of the clients who had gotten silent. Most of the time, they responded with something like, “Oh, Beth — I’ve been meaning to call you,” or “I’m still waiting on X person to get back to me about the project,” or “Shoot — I just haven’t had any time.” Everyone was friendly, and the calls even jump started a few new projects.

Oh… the author finally got back to me. It was a complete non-event.

Beth,
I really like the new structure and length…. Almost all my charges were in that opening section.

I made a few other small changes to answer your questions, or for accuracy, or to insert a word or two the way I would say it in this new structure.

I’m ready to accept changes and send to [the publisher], but wanted to send it back by you, in case there was anything in the changes that doesn’t sound good to you.

Best…