Even after four years as an entrepreneur, the wild swings of business still astonish me. And the ride doesn't promise to get any smoother.

There you are -- the next payroll, a large tax bill, and personal financial obligations coming up at you fast, with a very low number in your checking account. You can see bottom. You brace for impact. Then, out of the blue, a check arrives. Crisis averted.

Now, the car starts to climb but you still grip the bar, braced for the next dip.

It has been that kind of quarter. My company, Staffwriters, which places writers and editors, closed the last quarter with some healthy sales and good revenues coming in from top-notch permanent placements. However, the second quarter began with no prospects in sight and a new employee on board. So a cash reserve that should have covered two months of expenses didn't go as far. Here comes the next dip.

If you see it coming, you can prepare by cutting back on certain things and maybe tapping your reserves. But if -- like me -- you play it close, sometimes the next trough gets too close for comfort.

That's where we are now. I vowed last quarter not to touch my personal reserves, so I'm just making payroll and hoping some delinquent accounts start paying their invoices. Delinquent accounts are very frustrating. You know that had they paid up, you would have swooped past the dip without much of a sweat. But all we have is a few promises of payment. Take legal action? Sure, and risk not receiving anything while the suit is in progress? Then there are the collection fees. I've already begun to eat into my hard-won line of credit, small as it is. Good thing I have that to fall back on.

Wearing as the ride has been lately, I have new reasons to be optimistic. In the last three weeks, my temporary business (placing writers on contract) has shown signs of growth. Permanent placements seem about to take off, too. In the past 10 days, we've received about 20 new orders for permanent staffing. It's as if some business god is watching over my tiny company. Just as I'm about to make drastic cuts or lay off good employees, he or she pulls me out of the hole.

That said, I'm losing my taste for the deus-ex-machina ending. The dips have taught me the value of budgeting -- in a visceral way that those how-to-run-a-business books never can. For the first time, I'm planning for the next one.

With my fiscal year closing on Sept. 30, I'm closely auditing all of last year's expenses and forecasting the next fiscal year's sales conservatively. When you put the two numbers together, you come up with a pretty accurate picture of what's ahead -- that road map the business gurus talk about. I'm just getting a bit too old for the roller coaster.

George Giokas is the president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus, a specialty agency that places writers in temporary and permanent positions with corporate and other employers. It also provides editorial consulting work. His database includes 2,500 writers and editors specializing in more than 60 categories. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.