A Guide to Being a Freelance Editor

There’s maybe no word that incites terror or excitement equally as much as ‘freelance’. For many editors, it represents risk, uncertainty, and potential homelessness. For others, it represents freedom, opportunity, and a life well-lived.

There’s some truth to both sides of this equation, which is exactly why we wanted to clear some things up. We reached out to veteran freelance editors George Manzanilla and Carter Gunn to ask that burning question on your mind: Should I become a freelance editor? If so, how? 

Between the two of them, there’s dozens of years of professional editing experience. George has edited projects for Eddie Bauer, Comcast, Pepsi, Sierra Nevada, and many more. Carter is currently taking the Netflix world by storm, having worked on several award-winning documentaries like Flint Town and Fire in Paradise.

Regardless of the project, though, the qualities of being a good freelancer remain the same. We talked to each of them about:

Essential skills for freelance editors

Networking and putting yourself out there

Managing the business

Managing your time and stress levels

But, before we tackle the ‘how’ of the matter, let’s tackle the first part of the question. Here’s George Manzanilla and Carter Gunn’s guide to becoming a freelance editor.

Should You Even Go Freelance?

The freelance world can be a scary world, but much more so in theory than reality. Some people rely on security and that’s ok—they need a set salary and regular office hours. But, those things can also hold you back, too. A set salary means, well, that it’s set. And office hours are the definition of inflexible.

We think the litmus test for going freelance is this: If you’re already considering it, then that’s your answer. George agrees:

“I would say definitely do it. In editing, I think a lot of jobs are going to go freelance,” George told us. “There are positives and negatives, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. You get to do a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t be able to do as a nine-to-fiver. You still have that flexibility of time, which is really cool. That’s one of the main reasons freelancers are kind of unhireable for regular jobs. Plus, the sky’s the limit on your income. You can make a lot more than you can usually at a nine-to-five, salaried job.”

”

I think a lot of jobs are going to go freelance… There are positives and negatives, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It may seem scary to make the leap, but freelance work is the art of betting on yourself. You got into this game because you’re creative and you can take that same creativity into the business world. When we asked Carter the same question, he said freelance work means more flexibility and, ultimately, no restriction on how much money you can make in the industry. 

Sure, we can say that you need to have a good work ethic. You need to be able to budget well. You need to be able to network. But, you already know these things. What you really need to know is that the work is out there for editors, and clients are willing to pay handsomely for it—you just need to make the leap and, if you’re already considering it, it seems like you’re a prime candidate. 

Long story short: If you’re reading this post, yes you should go freelance. Now that we’ve answered the burning question, let’s dive into George and Carter’s advice on how to make the most of it. 

Know Your Stuff

As a freelancer, you’re running solo. That’s the entire point. But, at those nine-to-five jobs you do have the benefit of a team. You have other professionals who can carry the workload and responsibility of managing their own tasks. When Carter went freelance, he quickly found he didn’t have that luxury. 

“I learned that I needed some serious technical chops if I ever actually wanted to make it,” he told us. “My first even piece of advice is, be more technically proficient than you thought you needed to be, especially coming from an in-house place. You need to know how to do all of your own work.”

This may sound obvious, but it’s true. Learn the ins and outs of every aspect of editing and also the peripheral aspects of your job as well, that way you can know what you need and what you don’t need when your pitching to clients. There’s a business aspect to this point as well—you can make much more money if you know skills beyond your timeline.

“If you only work in Premiere, learning a little bit of After Effects will help you a lot. If you only cut, learning some basic coloring will help you a ton. For some of the smaller projects, being able to know how to finish that project to the end will land you the job and you get to keep all the money instead of handing it off to someone else. I recommend a lynda.com subscription and learning some applications you didn’t know before. I took two weeks off and just learned Avid before I stepped onto my first Netflix show. It was like a must.”

As a freelancer, you’ll learn that the entire business is about leveraging your talent and skills. If you can grow your skills, then you’re giving yourself more and more opportunities to succeed because of it. 

”

The name of the game in freelance is to build relationships with people that last years.

Put Yourself Out There

This is the hard part, at least for most filmmakers. You excel in the editing bay, basking in the glow of the screen until the early morning hours. But, in the freelance world, the sun is going to rise and you’re going to have to find new work by talking to people. That’s just the way it is. 

Both George and Carter said the same thing—that most of your clients are going to come from word of mouth, references, and simply just people you’ve gotten to know. And that’s good news! But, especially at the beginning, you’re going to have to pitch yourself and put yourself out there. Carter pointed out that it takes practice to get on these important calls, so maybe wait on calling your dream clients for now.

“One big piece of advice is never call the person you really want to work with on your first call,” Carter told us. “When I was living in San Francisco, I thought I could call whoever I wanted and I remember I called the guy who made the The Times of Harvey Milk and I said his name wrong and I just destroyed it. But, moving to LA, the first thing I did was I went to 72andSunny, and a couple of other agencies and just tried to introduce myself and kind of get in the room.”

Business calls are a learned skill, especially for us creative types. But, once you get better at it, you can begin to build lasting relationships and rely less and less on those calls. It’s the magic of networking. If those connections are strong enough, you can come back to the well over and over again.

“Look at it more as building relationships than just getting jobs,” George added. “The ideal thing is getting repeat clients who keep coming back to you for years. That’s really the name of the game in freelance is to build relationships with people that last years. Maybe they’ll use you at another company they’re working at, or, wherever they move, they keep coming back to you because they know that you’ll always deliver. That’s what it takes.”

This doesn’t just go for clients, either. It’s extremely important to get to know other freelance editors and post-production professionals, too. First, you can subcontract work to other freelancers when you’re swamped, giving you the ability to bring on more work and more income when the opportunity is there. Second, though, you can just give that work to editors when you’re overworked—and maybe they’ll do the same when they run out of space in their own schedule. 

”

You’re more than an editor, you’re a small business owner.

You’re Not a Person. You’re a Business.

Depending on your personality, this can be one of the most rewarding parts of a freelance career. You’re more than an editor, you’re a small business owner. Some of it sucks (ahem, taxes), but some of it can be extremely rewarding. 

One of the most difficult parts of the process can be valuing yourself accurately. If you’re like most creatives, we tend to downplay our own talent and value, but this can kill your income. So, George recommends starting with the amount you need to survive and building your pricing structure from there. Once you have a baseline, you have a reference for what’s “good” and what’s “bad” as far as a daily rate goes.

“You want to work freelance to make more than just survive, though. The way I look at it is that the company has to make money, and you have to make money. Early on, I just said, ‘Well, I need 4,000 a month to pay my bills, pay rent, be able to eat, and have a decent life.’ Now, I still do that, but I will definitely try to make it a little bit more of a calculated process where I’ll actually put a budget together when I’m bidding something, and I’ll put it in my day rate, and I’ll actually calculate a 15% overhead for the company.” 

This is more of an editorial note, but we recommend always airing on the side of more, not less. This may sound obvious or easy, but it’s really not. Like we said, creatives tend to undervalue themselves, so just assume you’re doing that when you arrive at that first number. Then, think that your client is wanting premium work from a premium professional—so treat yourself as such.

But, another point George made is that once you get a full workload, you can begin to test the numbers, too. Once you have enough work to support yourself, you’ll have more confidence in quoting higher numbers because you don’t have to have the job to survive.

But, with greater rates come greater responsibility and George pointed out that being a good business person is almost more key than being a good editor when it comes to return clients.

“That’s one of the things I’ve found that keeps clients coming back—make yourself easy to work with, treat it like a business, and remember it’s about customer service,” George said. “You don’t want to get taken advantage of, but you don’t want to nickel and dime your client. Be flexible enough to work with them and with their budget.”

People won’t be expecting you to be flexible on your numbers. They won’t expect you to answer emails right away. But, when you do, you’re reinforcing in their mind that you’re a business that solves problems for them—and that will make them a return client.

Another key skill of a business owner is being success oriented, and not project oriented. Carter said that when he worked at a post-house, he would only want to work on “sexy” projects. But, now, he has to be more open to projects of all kinds, because who knows where they’ll lead. 

“Do work that sucks. You might have to take some work that you don’t want to do, right? But, there’s only so many ways you can meet new people to work with and sometimes that means taking one for the team and if you do a good job on it, that’s still a client,” Carter told us. “I think that’s pretty important. Swallow your pride a little bit with some work; you’ve got to get paid.”

In other words, all work is sexy as a freelancer. And, once you accept that, it because a beautiful thing.

”

You definitely have to know your limits.

Self-Management is Key

Managing stress as a freelancer is an entirely different ballgame. Instead of a demanding boss, you have yourself to contend with—and that’s not necessarily easier. Plus, with the ebb and flow of a workload, it can be hard to anticipate when things will be busy or when they’ll be slow. 

George has a strategy for managing his workload, though, and it starts with breaking down his process into three general stages:

Initial planning and prep stage

Assembly and refining the first edit

Presenting the rough edit and addressing client notes

Once he can recognize the generalized steps in a project, he can then know how to manage his work. His key is to not have any more than two projects overlapping at the same stage in any given time. Every editor is different, but he said it’s important to know your limits and then stick by them.

“If you have three jobs in that stage, that’s when I start looking at outside help because that means that I’m just not going to be able to deliver a quality product on any of them,” he told us. “You definitely have to know your limits. That’s another tough thing for freelancing is just knowing when too much is too much. I’ve definitely reached that point and vowed to never be there again. It’s unhealthy to overwork yourself like that. No amount of money is worth that stress.”

And that’s a great way to end this post. Intentionality is perhaps the most important skill in a freelance life. It’s so easy to lose sight of the reason why you went freelance in the first place—the flexibility and space to live your life outside of work. You can quickly overload yourself in pursuit of a dollar and then you’re spending more hours in front of a screen than you did in your day job. 

Carter had this advice:

“Make sure when you do have time off, take actual time off. I think it’s super important for people to not take half time off, half work on,” he said. “Even if it’s just a day, fully commit to it. Otherwise, you’re never fully satisfied. You don’t feel like you had a break and you don’t feel like you totally got something done. I think it really is important to say, ‘I’m not working this weekend. I’m going to go for a hike. Do not disturb.’”

There’s nothing more rewarding than being the master of your own destiny. Bringing in new clients, finishing jobs, and getting those clients to come back is the epitome of catharsis. It’s easy to get lost in it. 

So, work hard at it. Then, don’t. Go take a hike—you’ve earned it. 

__

A huge thanks to George and Carter for offering their advice to future freelancers. They’re both extremely talented professionals and thoughtful individuals, so check out their sites (http://www.cartergunn.com/ and (http://georgemanzanilla.com/) if you need some high-end editorial work on your next project.

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How I Became a Full-Time Freelance Copy Editor

Shannon Page

Or, How I Get to Sleep Till I Wake Up Every Day, Have No Commute, and Am Paid to Read Books…but, I Also Don’t Know What Evenings and Weekends Are Anymore.

Once upon a time I had a full-time day job outside the house, with retirement and benefits and all that; I was also married to a man with a great income.

Then that part of my life came to an end. But that’s another story.

Today, I am a full-time stay-at-home copy editor and proofreader. I have a large stable of fantastic, loyal repeat clients, and occasionally take on new ones. Even more wonderfully, I also turn away potential clients — I did that just last week, as it happens. It feels sort of terrifying and marvelous and irresponsible and unreal; I haven’t quite gotten used to that part yet. I’m still emotionally in the days of what if there will never be another client, never another gig; I will never work again; we’re going to starve…

Even if I haven’t actually been in those days for several years now.

I can’t tell you how to become a freelance copy editor/proofreader so successful that you can pick and choose your clients. I can only tell you how I did it. As with any personal narrative, there will be parts of my story that are just random luck and happenstance — but, I think there are some things that are generalizable. Things you can control, if you think you want to try this at home, as they say.

The first thing I can identify is that, from the start, I’ve lived a life that has left me very qualified to do this kind of work. I am a reader. (I’m a writer too, but that’s also another story.) I grew up without television, and very few other kids around to play with, so I turned to books. I love to read. I get paid to read books all day, and when I go to bed, I…read books. I see these “reading challenges” on Goodreads and the like about how “you can do it, you can read six books this year” or “a dozen!!”, and I think, Oh, sweet summer child. I read one hundred and forty-eight books last year. Of course, only sixty-four of them were for “fun”; the rest were for my work.

So that’s one piece. Luck or planning? Let’s call that luck, since nobody was exactly mapping out my future career when I was a hippie kid reading library books by candlelight at home on the commune.

I did well in school, as you might imagine. The American public school system is absolutely set up for people like me: folks who are comfortable with the written word. I am not quite as conversant in math and science, but I muddled through those well enough while excelling in language skills. (I’m one of the only people I know who scored higher on her English SATs than on math.) I liked school, and I liked knowing that the teachers found me smart and talented.

As a result, I got away with stuff. In high school, I was busy reading Michener’s Hawaii when we were supposed to be writing a book report on something from a prescribed list in our Social Studies class. I just didn’t get around to reading a qualifying book (Hawaii is very long, and I was a teenage girl with a teenage girl’s social life) so…I invented one. The novel I made up was called Owyhee: Story of the Islands, by Arlo Hutton. Arlo was the family dog of the Huttons, for whom I babysat regularly (don’t bother Googling him, Owyhee was, sadly, Arlo’s only novel). I invented the whole plot of the novel, and the publisher, and the date of publication; I wrote a book report on that. Somehow, that seemed easier than choosing a book from the teacher’s silly list.

I got an A.

Speaking of education: I also managed, later, to attend a really fine university. This part was entirely luck, of the temporal and geographic variety. UC Berkeley was our “local” school (two hours from where I grew up), and, though admission wasn’t a shoo-in in the mid-1980s, it was a heck of a lot easier than it is today. (Especially if you had good SAT scores.) Also, it was priced like the state school it is (and still should be, alas), so I was able to put myself through college without help from my parents, or crushing student loans — just part-time jobs. That was impossible even five years later; and it costs as much as a new car now, per year.

So, okay. I got lucky in the education department, and I’m a weirdo reader-writer-book fiend. If you are not that thing, you might want to consider whether a career working with books is right for you.

The next step was getting jobs that featured editorial work. I’ve actually never had a job with the title Editor, but all my work had to do with manuscripts, publications. Words, in one way or another. I transcribed oral history interviews in college (one of those part-time jobs that funded my education); later, I worked as an Editorial Assistant in that same department. Sometimes the editors would have me proofread the interviews before publication. I even worked in a lab in a medical school — but again, helping the department head with the scientific papers, grants, and patents he was writing.

It was then that I discovered my freakish superpower. I spot typos. A misspelled word just looks wrong to me. It’s the wrong shape; it sticks in my craw; it feels itchy on my skin. I can’t explain it, and I would have no idea how to teach anyone to do it.

I’m one of those people who finds typos in published books. I’ve had to work hard to not get irritated by it. (Okay, I lie: it always bothers me.)

But it also, perversely, cheers me up. There will always be typos! There will always be a need for proofreaders!

The next part of the story is how this became my actual full-time job. It went like this: when I left the old life and job behind, I had a little bit of financial cushion, which gave me space to figure out what to do next. So I looked very carefully into my heart and soul, at the things I loved to do, at what would be satisfying to do all day, for years on end, and I decided…

…that I wanted to become a Realtor.

No, really. I went through hundreds of hours of training, aced my state’s licensing exam, interviewed at a number of local realty offices, and accepted an offer at one of them. I built a list of potential clients, held open houses for other brokers, even upgraded my wardrobe.

I tried that for an embarrassingly lengthy period of time. During which time I never sold a house; never even landed a listing or a client.

Meanwhile…being a writer, I had a lot of friends who were also writers. Back when I was still doing the real estate training, one of my friends had a book coming out from a small press. They’d sent him the galleys to look over; I offered to help, since I was good at that sort of thing. I found a lot of typos. We corrected them and sent them in.

I kept trying to be a Realtor. I really liked being able to look up all the behind-the-scenes information on houses for sale. I loved the magical device I had that enabled me to open up any lockbox city-wide; I walked through so many vacant houses. I even took a friend through dozens of houseboats on the river (she was interested in the houseboat lifestyle, though she had no money to actually buy one).

My writer friend’s book came out. It was gorgeous. Some time later, I met the small press owners at a convention. (Being a writer, I was going to lots of conventions in those days, hoping to meet agents and editors and publishers, so they would publish my books.) The small press owners congratulated me on the typo-finding I’d done on my friend’s book, and said if they ever had any freelance work available, they’d keep me in mind.

More time passed. I didn’t sell any houses. My savings dwindled. I was going to have to figure out what to do.

The small press did contact me! Months later. They sent me one gig. I worked so hard on it, trying not to let myself read too fast, trying to find every single typo. I have no idea whether I managed that or not, but they liked my work well enough to send me another book to proofread a few months later.

And then another one a few weeks after that.

Soon, I was working for them fairly steadily, but it was nothing like enough to pay the bills. But then they asked if they could send my name to another small press! I said yes, of course. So now I had a second client.

I met another author at another convention, who was starting a small press. I told him I did proofreading. He asked if I did copy editing too. “Sure,” I said, promising myself I’d go home and look up the difference between copy editing and proofreading.

(Here’s a secret: these days, they’re kind of the same thing. In the olden days, a copy editor worked on a draft manuscript. They came after the developmental editor, and the structural editor, and the line editor (also functions that can and do get combined these days). The copy editor was the second-to-last line of defense, looking for typos of course, but also infelicities of language, overuse of crutch words, detail inconsistencies (someone’s eye color changes, or they get up and storm across the room after they already got up and paced to the window), and what I like to call the “forty-five-hour afternoon,” which usually happens when an author moves things around in the manuscript and forgets to keep track of time.

(The proofreader, on the other hand, traditionally is given actual printed page proofs: an already-typeset manuscript ready to go to the printer. She checks for typos (again), headers and footers, placement of the text, and other things like that. Ideally, nothing she finds should change the pagination; it’s been set. After the proofreader, the traditional book is printed, bound, and sold.)

So. I started copy editing too. Just as much fun as proofreading! That author-friend with the small press referred me to a friend of his, who was a successful self-published writer. That was new to me, and I was a little skeptical, as at that point in my life, I was still laboring under the outdated delusion that people self-published because they weren’t good enough to publish traditionally. Hahahahaha. Trust me, I have long since been set to rights there. (In my defense, once upon a time, that was actually true. Don’t make me show you my grandfather’s self-published book about how aliens abducted him and gave him detailed instructions on how we’re supposed to remake our society into a utopia of their own design. He actually wrote it as a science fiction novel to make it more accessible.)

That new client, the successful self-published client, was part of a group of other self-published writers, and she asked if she could give my name out…and thus started a fractally branching system of referrals that hasn’t stopped to this day.

It went on like that. Until there came a day when I had to stop what I was in the middle of at home — copy editing a fascinating book — to put on my Realtor clothes and go into the office for my “desk time,” answering the phones and being the office presence to nab any walk-in business.

And I realized, Wait a minute. This business is booming. Real estate is entirely not happening. Why don’t I…do this instead?

So I quit real estate, though I kept my license active just in case. And I leaned into doing what I actually love: reading books and making them better. I handed out business cards at conventions, to other small presses and indie authors. I told my clients I was open to referrals. I updated my website, and published my rates.

It was scary, and a little dicey, at first. You will no doubt be astonished to hear that I am not as wealthy as a successful Realtor (though I’m doing way better than a Realtor who has no clients or listings). But I make enough. Enough, in fact, that I have spent large spans of time being the major and sometimes only earner in my marriage. We trade off; sometimes he makes the big bucks. (The two-freelancer marriage: I will have to write that article some day…)

But it worked. When two years had gone by and it was time to renew my real estate license, I let it lapse. (I was very sad to give back that magical door-opening device, but alas, it had to be done.)

I love how my career found me, and not the other way around.

So: You want the freelance lifestyle, hm? You want to sleep till you wake up, and go to the gym in the middle of the afternoon when the pool is empty, and eat lunch every day at your own table? It’s pretty sweet, I won’t deny it. Yes, there are downsides: with all that farting around, your workday better not end at 5pm, or you’re going to run out of money fast. You do have to be the kind of person who can be disciplined, without a boss looking over your shoulder. You have to stay on top of your expenses, and pay your taxes quarterly — EXTRA taxes, I’m sorry to inform you, because you’re also paying the employer’s share. And health insurance…all I can say is, “Thanks, Obama!” We’d be toast without the ACA and its life-saving subsidies.

But if you’re up for that, here’s my advice:

Have a cushion. This never would have even had a chance to happen accidentally if I hadn’t had a little savings at the outset. So, don’t quit your day job. Or, if you have a spouse or partner who can cover the household income needs for a while, that works too.

Network, network, network. Tell everyone what you’re doing. Ask for referrals. Don’t be shy. Give your gorgeous business cards to everyone.

Do spectacular work, and deliver it on time, or early. Be an adult, be reliable, be professional. Your clients will keep coming back if they know they can trust you.

Keep track of your hours. I charge by the job, not by the hour; but I log every hour spent doing the actual work. (Not the time spent drumming up the work or messing around on Facebook or going to the post office or whatever — I’m not a maniac.) That way you can be sure you’re being paid what you need to be paid.

Related to that: Make sure your rates are competitive. I’m fast, so my rates are lower than the industry average, but that still works out for me.

If that sounds workable to you, go forth and freelance, my friend! And let me know how it works out, if you like.

Coda: I am 100% certain that, having written a cheerful, detailed article about what a whizz-bang copy editor and proofreader I am, there will be a typo or ten in here. Because the world is just cruel that way, and it’s really, really hard to proof your own work. I just wanted to put that out there. Be kind. :-)

Microsoft lays off journalists to replace them with AI

Microsoft News and MSN is increasingly being run by robots

By Tom Warren

on May 30, 2020 11:27 am

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is laying off dozens of journalists and editorial workers at its Microsoft News and MSN organizations. The layoffs are part of a bigger push by Microsoft to rely on artificial intelligence to pick news and content that’s presented on MSN.com, inside Microsoft’s Edge browser, and in the company’s various Microsoft News apps. Many of the affected workers are part of Microsoft’s SANE (search, ads, News, Edge) division, and are contracted as human editors to help pick stories.

“Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement. “This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, re-deployment in others. These decisions are not the result of the current pandemic.”

While Microsoft says the layoffs aren’t directly related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, media businesses across the world have been hit hard by advertising revenues plummeting across TV, newspapers, online, and more.

Business Insider first reported the layoffs on Friday, and says that around 50 jobs are affected in the US. The Microsoft News job losses are also affecting international teams, and The Guardian reports that around 27 are being let go in the UK after Microsoft decided to stop employing humans to curate articles on its homepages.

Microsoft has been in the news business for more than 25 years, after launching MSN all the way back in 1995. At the launch of Microsoft News nearly two years ago, Microsoft revealed it had “more than 800 editors working from 50 locations around the world.”

Microsoft has gradually been moving towards AI for its Microsoft News work in recent months, and has been encouraging publishers and journalists to make use of AI, too. Microsoft has been using AI to scan for content and then process and filter it and even suggest photos for human editors to pair it with. Microsoft had been using human editors to curate top stories from a variety of sources to display on Microsoft News, MSN, and Microsoft Edge.

సంస్కారం ఇవ్వడం... నిజమైన సంపద....💥

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రిటైర్మెంటు రోజు ఆఫీసులో భారీగా ఏర్పాట్లు చేశారు.  పెద్ద అధికారులు, యూనియన్ నాయకులు సత్కారసభకి వచ్చి సుందరయ్య సేవలను కొనియాడారు.  చివర్లో సుందరయ్యపిల్లలు మాట్లాడుతూ సుందరయ్య సంతానంగా తాము జన్మించటం తమ అదృష్టం అంటూ చాలా ఎమోషనల్ గా మాట్లాడారు.తన పిల్లలు ఇంత బాగా మాట్లాడుతారా అని సుందరయ్యే ఆశ్చర్యపోయాడు. 

తనకి జరిగిన సత్కారానికి  కృతఙ్ఞతలు తెలుపుతూ సుందరయ్య “తనకి ఇంత భారీగా సత్కార సభ జరగటం వ్యక్తిగతంగా ఇష్టం లేకపొయినా సరే, పది మందికోసం ఒప్పుకోక తప్పలే దంటు” తన అనుభావాలను ముచ్చటించి కష్టపడి పనిచేసి సంస్ధ అభివృద్ధికి పాటుపడాలనీ, సంస్థ బాగుంటేనే మనం బాగుంటామని హితవు పలికాడు. చివర్లో తనకి రావలసిన పి.ఎఫ్., గ్రాట్యుయిటి, వగైరా  అన్నింటికీ సంబంధించిన చెక్కులు సుందరయ్య చేతికి అందించారు.  సభ ముగిసిన తర్వాత అక్కడే విందు ఏర్పాటు జరిగింది.  కార్యక్రమాలైన తర్వాత కార్లో ఇంటికి సాగనంపారు.  రాత్రి ఇంటికి చేరిన తర్వాత పిల్లలు ఆఫీసులో జరిగిన సన్మానం గురించి మాట్లాడుకుంటుండగానే  సుందరయ్యకి వెంటనే నిద్ర పట్టేసింది.

మర్నాడు బ్యాంకుకి వెళ్ళి తన అకౌంట్లు  అన్నీ సెటిల్ చేసుకున్నాడు.  మిగిలిన డబ్బుని అకౌంటులో వేసుకుని, పిల్లల విషయం తేలిన తర్వాత ఏంచెయ్యాలో అప్పుడు అలోచించొచ్చని ఇంటికి తిరిగొచ్చాడు.  అలాగే, తానే పిల్లల్ని పిలిచి ఉన్న విషయాన్ని చెప్పి ఓ నిర్ణయానికి రావటం మంచిదని భావించాడు. 

అటు సుందరయ్య కొడుకూ, కూతురు కూడా తండ్రితో విషయం ఎలా చెప్పాలా? అని ఆలోచిస్తున్నారు. అందరి పిల్లల్లాగే వాళ్ళకీ తండ్రి దగ్గర భయం ఎక్కువే. ఒకొక్కసారి తండ్రి తీసుకునే నిర్ణయాలను మార్చడం కష్టం. కొన్ని సందర్భాల్లో ఆయన గీసుకున్న గిరిని దాటి వచ్చేవారుకాదు. ఆ విషయంలో మాట్లాడటానికి కూడా అవకాశం ఇచ్చేవారుకాదు. తండ్రి సిద్ధాంతలు చాలా ఉన్నతమైనవే.. కాని ఈ రోజుల్లో వాటిని నిత్యజీవితంలో పాటించడం కష్టం.  అందుకే పట్టువిడుపులు ఉండాలి. రోజులతోపాటూ మనం కూడా మారాలి.   అంతేకానీ సమాజాన్ని మార్చటం మన తరంకాదు.. అని తండ్రికి చెప్పే ధైర్యం వాళ్ళకి లేదు. అలా అని అయన అభిప్రాయాలు మంచివి కావని కూడా అనలేరు.

 

 ఎవరు ఏమడుగుతారనే టెన్షన్ తోనే ఆ రోజు పూర్తిగా గడిచిపోయింది. 

"వాళ్ళు ఏమైనా నీతో అన్నారా?" అంటూ రాత్రి పడుకోబోయేముందు సుందరయ్య భార్యని అడిగాడు.

"అబ్బే.. నన్నేం అడగలేదు.  ఆడిగినా నేనేం మాట్లడతాను?  ఆ విషయం వాళ్ళకి తెలుసు."

ఆ మర్నాడు సాయంత్రం పిల్లలు వెళ్ళిపోతారు.   ఈలోగా ఏదో ఒకటి తానే చెయ్యాలి. సుందరయ్య ఏదో ఆలోచన స్ఫురించటంతో నిద్ర పట్టేసింది.  ఉదయమే ఇంట్లో అందరిని పిలిచాడు సుందరయ్య.

"నేను,  అమ్మ ప్రస్తుతానికి ఇక్కడే ఉంటాం.  పుట్టి పెరిగిన ఊరు వదలి రావాటం కుదరదు. నాకు పెన్షన్ వస్తుంది. అది మాకు సరిపోతుంది.    నా రిటైర్మెంటు  డబ్బులతో అప్పులు తీర్చగా మిగిలినవి మొత్తం  ఇవి! మాకు ఏమైనా అవంతరాలు వస్తే అవసరార్థం కొంచెం డబ్బులు మాకు వుంచి  మిగతావి మీరిద్దరు తీసుకోండి.  ఇదిగో  బ్లాంక్ చెక్కులు. నేనివ్వగలిగింది ఇదే!" అంటూ సుందరయ్య ఓ కాగితం మీద లెక్కలు రాసి, చెక్కులు  వాళ్ళ చేతిలో  పెట్టాడు.

వసంతమ్మకి భర్త అలోచన నచ్చింది.  నిజమే..అంత్య నిష్టూరం కంటే ఆదినిష్టూరం మంచిది. అయితే  ఆయన మాటలు మిగాతావాళ్ళకి ఆశ్చర్యం కలిగించలేదు. అయన ఏ విషయమైన, అంతా సూటిగానే చెప్పేస్తారు .

"వద్దు నాన్నా.   మేం వచ్చింది మీ రిటైర్మెంటు సమయంలో మీతో నాలుగు రోజులు గడపడానికి వచ్చామే గానీ ఆస్తులు పంచుకోడానికి కాదు!! మాకు ఆర్ధిక సమస్యలు గానీ, అవసరాలు గానీ లేవు. నిజంగా మాకు అవసరమైతే మీ దగ్గర తీసుకోడానికి మాకు మొహమాటం ఎందుకుంటుంది నాన్న గారూ! ఇలాంటి ఆలోచనలు పెట్టుకోకుండా హాయిగా ఉండండి" అంటూ అబ్బాయి చెక్కుల్ని తిరిగి  తండ్రి చేతితో పెట్టేశాడు. 

అంతే! ఒక్క నిమిషంలో వాతవరణం చల్లబడిపోయింది.  అందరి ఉహాలు ఓరకంగా ఊహలుగానే ఉండిపోయాయి .

"అన్నట్లు.. నాన్నగారు మనందరం కలిసి ఓసారి మన కోనేరుగట్టుకి వెళ్ళొద్దాం.  మన పాతిల్లు, ఆ వీధి చూసి చాలా కాలమయింది" అన్న కొడుకు మాటలు వినేసరికి సుందరయ్యకి ఆనందం వేసింది. 

"నిజమేరా! మేం కుడా ఆ గట్టుకి వెళ్లి చాలా కాలమయింది " అంటూ అందరు బయలుదేరారు.

"అబ్బా! మన వీధి చాలా మారిపోయింది ."

"అవున్రా. ఈ  వీధిలో అందరి ఇళ్ళు అపార్టుమెంట్సుకి ఇచ్చేసారు.  ఒక్క మనం అద్దెకున్న వాళ్ళ ఆ ఇల్లే అలాఉంది. ఈ మధ్య  ఆ ఇంటివాళ్ళు అమ్మెస్తే, ఎవరో కొనుక్కొని రీమోడల్ చేయించారట. మొక్కలు, చెట్లు పాడావకుండా అలాగే వున్నాయి! ఎవరో మంచి వాళ్ళలా ఉన్నారు! ఇంటి స్వరూపాన్ని పాడుచేయకుండా, బాగుచేయించారు. బావుంది!" అలా కబుర్లు చెప్పుకుంటూ కోనేరు నాలుగు గట్లూ తిరిగి, ఇంటికొచ్చేసారు. 

ఆ రోజు సాయంత్రమే పిల్లల ప్రయాణాలు. 

‘ఏవిటో! వారం రోజులు ఏడు క్షణాల్లా గడిచిపోయాయి!’ అనుకుంటూ వాళ్ళతోపాటు రైల్వే స్టేషన్ కు వెళ్లి , వీడ్కోలు చెప్పి ఇంటికొచ్చేశారు సుందరయ్య, వసంతమ్మ.   ఇంటిికొస్తూనే టేబులుమీద కవరు చూసి సుందరయ్య అశ్చర్యపోయాడు. నాన్నగారికి  అన్న అక్షరాలు చూసి ఆత్రుతగా కవరు చింపి చదవసాగారు.

నాన్నగారికి,

మీ దగ్గర మాట్లాడే ధైర్యం లేక  ఈ ఉత్తరం రాస్తున్నా౦.  మరోలా భావించకండి.   మీరు పడ్డ కష్టాలు మేం పడకూడదని, మమ్మల్ని చాలా అపురూపంగా పెంచారు! దానికితోడు మారిన రోజులతోపాటు మేం కూడా మారిపోయాం. యాంత్రికయుగంలో ఎన్నో సదుపాయాలను ఏర్పాటు చేసుకుని జీవితాన్ని చాలా సుఖమయం చేసుకున్నాం.  కాలంతోపాటు పరుగులు తీస్తున్నాం! కానీ మేం చాలా కోల్పోయాం నాన్నగారుా!! బాల్యం మాకు తెలియదు. యవ్వనంలో మాకు మంచి అనుభూతులు లేవు. అనుబంధాలు, ఆత్మీయతలు అంటే మాకర్ధం తెలియదు. మేం పరిగెత్తుకుంటూ పాలు తాగుతున్నాం,  కానీ నీళ్ల రుచి తెలియదు!  మీ తరంవాళ్ళు గుర్రంస్వారీ చేసేవారు.  మేం పులిస్వారీ చేస్తున్నాం.  మీరు జీవితాన్ని కాచివడపోసారు. మేం జీవితాన్ని నిర్లక్ష్యం చేస్తున్నాం.  మీరు పెద్దలమాటలు వినేవారు. మేం కంప్యూటర్ చెప్పినట్లు నడుచుకుంటున్నాం!! అమ్మ ఎప్పుడూ  అంటుందే.. అలా మేం గోరీలు కట్టుకుని జీవిస్తున్నాం నాన్నగారుా!! 

ఒక్క విషయం చెప్పగలంనాన్నగారు! మీ పెంపకంలో లోపం లేదు.  మేం పెరిగిన వాతవరణంలో లోపం ఉంది!  మా దగ్గర సముద్రమంత మేధస్సు ఉంది. కానీ ఆ మేధస్సుతో  గుక్కెడు నీళ్ళు కూడా తాగలేం! మీ మేధస్సు కోనేరంతే .. అయితే నేం .. అదంతా మంచినీరు!!.  ఇవన్నీ ఎందుకు చెప్తున్నానంటే, మిమ్మల్ని ఈ రొంపిలోకి లాగదలచుకోలేదు! మీరు ఎప్పుడూ స్వప్నాలలో జీవించలేదు.వాస్తవాలతో జీవనం సాగించేరు! మీకు మనుషులతోనేకాదు, మీ పుట్టి పెరిగిన నేలతో కూడా బంధాలున్నాయి. చెట్లూ, పశువులూ,పక్షులూ అన్నిటితో మీకు అనుబంధాలున్నాయి! వీటితోపాటు చివరికి మనం పాతికేళ్ళు అద్దెకున్న ఇంటిమీద కూడా  మీకు మమకారం ఉంది!! వీటిని వదులుకోలేక, ఉద్యోగంలో ప్రమోషన్లు తీసుకోకుండా ఉన్నదాంట్లో చాలా సంతృప్తిగా జీవిస్తున్నారు!

అందుకే  మమ్మల్ని  మీవాస్తవ జీవితాల్నుంచి దూరం చేయటం ఇష్టంలేక, మీ అనుభందాలను త్రుంచటం ఇష్టం లేక, మీకు తెలియకుండా  ఓపని చెశాం!!  అక్కా, నేను కలసి మన కోనేరు గట్టులో మన గతంలో ఉన్న ఇంటిని మీ గురించి కొన్నాం. ఈ ఉత్తరంతో పాటున్న  తాళంచెవి  ఆఇంటిదే!! మీరు ఆఇంటిలోకి మారి, స్వేచ్ఛగా, హాయిగా  ఉండాలనేదే  మాకోరిక!  

అన్నట్లు, ఇంకో అభ్యర్ధన కూడా ఉంది నాన్నా!! త్వరలో మాకు పుట్టే పిల్లల్ని మమ్మల్ని పెంచినట్లు కాకుండా,  మీరు పెరిగినట్లు పెంచి,  పెద్దచేసే బాధ్యతని మీకే అప్పగిస్తున్నాం. మన గట్టు మీద పెంచండి. అంటే మాకు  తీరిక లేక, పెంచలేక  కానేకాదు!!  మా స్వార్థం అంతకంటే కాదు!!  వాళ్ళు మేం పెరిగినట్లు పెరగకూడదు. మీరు పెరిగినట్లు పెరగాలనే మా ఆశ! వాళ్ళు యంత్రాలు కాకూడదు, వాళ్ళు మనుషులలాగానే ఎదగాలి!  

ఓ విషయం చెప్పనా నాన్నా?  మీలాంటి వాళ్ళ చేతులలో పిల్లలు పెరగడం, భవిష్యత్తులో మనిషి మనుగడకి చాలా అవసరం నాన్నా! కాదనరుగా!!

ఇట్లు

మీ అమ్మాయి, అబ్బాయి.

ఉత్తరం చదివిన సుందరయ్య కళ్ళు  కోనేరుతో నిండిపోయింది!  ఆ కళ్ళతోనే వసంతమ్మ  కళ్ళల్లో వసంతాన్ని చూశాడు. వంటింట్లో కాకులు, పెరట్లో కోయిలలు హడావిడిగా కనిపించేయి.

అయ్యకోనేరు మాత్రం ఆనందబాష్పాలు రాల్చింది!!

కొత్త కొత్త సానుకూల ఆలోచనలని రేకెత్తించే  ఇలాంటి కథలే ఇప్పుడు మనుషులని నిజమైన మనుషులుగా మార్చటానికి పనికొస్తాయి!

నీతి:- నిజంగా పిల్లలకు ఆస్తులకంటే మంచి సంస్కారం ఇవ్వడం... నిజమైన సంపద....

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