Geoff was about halfway to the Tower of Hidden Commitments when he came across the commissioning editor again. He was tending to a vegetable patch in an allotment opposite his detached house in suburbia.
‘Hello there, Geoff! How are your first drafts coming along?’ asked the editor.
‘Getting there,’ lied Geoff. ‘I like your vegetable patch.’ he said. Geoff wasn’t great at small talk.
‘Oh, it’s not my patch. This is the Publisher’s Patch of Tenuous Vegetable-related References and Acronyms.’
Geoff assumed that this was a set up to reference PARSNIPs. Then he realized that PARNSIPs were unlikely to feature in anything the publisher would produce. Wondering where this was going, he continued with the awkward small talk.
‘Looks like some nice sugar snap growing there…’ he said.
‘You mean between the marrowfat and garden varieties?’ replied the editor, ‘Yes, you’ll find those PPP ingredients in most of our coursebooks.’
‘What’s growing over there?’ inquired Geoff, pointing to some green flowery stalks. ‘Do they form another tenuous acronym?’
‘Actually, no. That’s just celery,’ said the editor, ‘it’s a bit stunted though. As you know, the celeries in publishing are quite low these days…’
Geoff hoped these references would end soon.
He noticed some wilting legumes growing in the middle of the patch. A label sticking out of the soil nearby listed some established ELT authors.
‘Go on, what’s the reference there then?’ asked Geoff.
‘Well,’ started the commissioning editor, ‘each of those authors still thinks that we’ll cut them a good royalties deal. Ha, not in this day and age! They’re too expensive and they expect conditions for freelancers to be fairly reasonable. We can’t work with them anymore so we just let them wilt, which adds a certain bitterness. We consider them a special variety …’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Geoff.
‘They’re has-beans. Anyhow, have fun at the Tower of Hidden Commitments,’ continued the editor, ‘and prepare yourself for some changes to the editorial team soon afterwards’. He seemed to mutter that last bit and trailed off at the end.
‘Sorry, what?’ said Geoff, looking confused.
‘Nothing…’ dismissed the editor, as he turned to tend to some phonology hops used for the publisher’s IPA.
Geoff arrived at the Tower of Hidden Commitments. He took the express lift to the top floor. He entered the skydeck and was greeted by the Head of Marketing.
‘Welcome, Geoff,’ said the Head of Marketing in a Bond villain-style voice. They handed Geoff a Bloody Mary with a celery stick from the Publisher Patch poking out of it. Realising their mistake, they promptly removed the stick – there’s no additional celery for writers when it comes to the marketing side of things. The Head of Marketing turned Geoff’s attention to the panorama.
‘Take a look, Geoff. Soak it up. You can see customers from every single angle up here. All that groundwork you’re laying for the book, down there, you can forget those frustrations. Here we are, Geoff. This is beating heart of the project. Marketing is the beating heart of any project. It’s not the actual product that matters – you understand that, right? It’s what we make that product become. And it can become anything we want. You can help us Geoff. You are part of this team too…’
Geoff was captivated by the view and entranced by the Head of Marketing’s words. He snapped out of it for a second, at which point he realized who (or rather, what) he was talking to. The Head of Marketing was shaped in human form, but had no actual body parts – apart from a bright red beating heart. The outline of their body was made entirely from one continuous piece of rope. Before Geoff had time to process what he’d seen, the Head of Marketing extended their cordlike arms in an attempt to hook Geoff around the neck.
‘Webinars!’, they shouted, as they attempted to draw Geoff closer. ‘Four or five at least! Different regions! Starting at 4am!’
Geoff took out the sword of pushback to defend himself.
‘Blogposts!’ squealed the Head of Marketing as another arm tried desperately to tie Geoff into additional, unpaid commitments.
‘Promo conference talks! They’ll be some expenses – just some mind you!’ The Head of Marketing was relentless. ‘You’ll be proud of that book Geoff – you’ll be very proud. The market will expect you to be. We expect you to be! Promoting the book is not part of your actual contract, but we do expect it…’
‘You’re not roping me into anything!’ sneered Geoff. He rushed at the Head of Marketing with the sword of pushback. He slashed, right at the heart of the project. The Head of Marketing seemed to coil back, but then they reformed and continued trying to hook Geoff in. Eventually, they tired.
‘Fine. You win, for now. But we’ll be back,’ said the exasperated rope. ‘Have fun checking your emails’. The rope muttered that last comment and trailed off at the end. Geoff knew better than to seek further clarification.
The express lift was broken, so Geoff took the spiral stairs down to the ground. He was sure there was a curriculum design metaphor that he could draw out from the staircase, but he was tiring somewhat. ‘I’ll take a photo of this staircase anyway,’ thought Geoff, ‘It’ll look good on the front cover of a Routledge methodology book.’
He reached the bottom of the tower, where he found a cozy coffee shop. ‘I guess I should sit in here and get started on Unit 1 Draft 1…’ Geoff thought. The rigmarole so far seemed to have affected his motivation a tad, but that was nothing a double espresso couldn’t solve.
Geoff ordered his drink, sat down, and turned on his laptop. He went straight to his emails, which he hoped would present some opportunities for procrastination. The latest email was from the commissioning editor. The subject was ‘Some changes to the team’. Geoff opened the email. The only content was a big arrow pointing up, with the words ‘follow me’ below it. Geoff’s gaze naturally followed the arrows upward trajectory until he was staring beyond the computer screen and at a (real life) door in the distance. The door had a sign on it that said: ‘Some changes to the team’.
‘For crying out loud. What is it this time?!’ Geoff exclaimed. He contemplated getting up and going through the door straightaway. However, he got willfully distracted by some items in his social inbox. Someone on LinkedIn still wanted to connect. Rachael Roberts was promoting a course. Nik Peachey shared some tips for using ChatGPT. He decided to play around with the AI tool for a bit until the caffeine kicked in.
He instructed Chat GPT to create the first four units of the publisher’s new coursebook, and fed it various criteria from the brief. Within about 20 minutes, he’d completed his first drafts. The ChatGPT output didn’t require much tweaking. All Geoff had to do was amend a couple of the dialogues to make them sound less authentic. He manually added a few spelling mistakes and formatting errors, and made sure to apologise for them in his submission email to the development editor, just to keep up the pretense.
‘Right then!’ said Geoff in mid-coffee buzz, ‘let’s see what’s behind that door’.
He packed up his work stuff, picked up his sword and shield, and burst through the door. He took one look at the contents of the room and sighed. It had begun.
The entire in-house project team stood in a random formation in front of Geoff – minus the commissioning editor.
‘Hi Geoff. I’m the product owner,’ said a green weeble, ‘There are some changes to the project team’.
‘I heard,’ replied Geoff.
‘The commissioning editor, i.e. the only person in the team who had any faith in you, has gone on gardening leave’ informed the product owner. ‘From now on, your main point of contact will be… ambiguous.’
‘Right,’ sighed Geoff. ‘So, what do I do?
‘It depends. If your email is to inform us that you have met your deliverables, it can go to anyone. If it includes questions about your deliverables, things like clarifying details in the brief, this will happen.
All of a sudden, the green weebles began to randomly shift positions, dodging each other and any responsibility. All this played out to the tune of Yakety Sax. Bewildered, Geoff had no idea where the product owner had gone, which member of the team he was now addressing, and whether or not they were competent.
‘Over here, Geoff!’ shouted the product owner from their new position, ‘Let me just clarify one more thing.’
Geoff walked over to the product owner. ‘Go on…’ he said.
‘If your email is about payment, invoicing, or just being rewarded in any way for your hard work, this will happen.’
All the weebles disappeared. Geoff’s phone buzzed uncontrollably. He had 10 unread messages from members of the in-house team – all of which were out of office replies.
Geoff was barely a few days into the project, yet he was already alone.
Credits
All stills taken from Soleil / Crusader of Centy (c) Sega/Nextech/Atlus
Source: here
GIFs adapted from Shadowserg’s all bosses walkthrough here.
Categories: General, materials writing
ELT Planning 
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