The big adventure isn’t always in the story. Sometimes it’s in the editing. A few years ago I spent the morning with two classes of junior high students to talk about how to give editing feedback to each other. They were writing adventure stories. Part of their assignment was to …
On Facebook recently, a colleague reported being the victim of a phone hijacking. You might recognize the feeling. A potential client calls to ask about editing services and then spends the better part of an hour telling her story with barely a breath between sentences, leaving you with no room …
Last year, we published this post on the freelancer’s holiday blues. This year, we’re following up with our readers. Have you implemented any of these ideas? Do you have other tips for avoiding the holiday lull? When projects disappear in other months, the freelance editor adjusts her schedule and cash …
As the oft-paraphrased Leonardo da Vinci would have it, art [or poetry or writing or editing] is never finished, only abandoned. Writing is like a teenager. Eventually you have to send it out into the world to fend for itself. (Or should I say it’s like a young adult? Most …
The little knot forming in your chest isn’t a reaction to the cold weather. It’s the freelance editor’s anxiety kicking in right on schedule, just before the holidays. When projects disappear in other months, the freelance editor adjusts her schedule and cash flow projections and stoically reminds herself that this …
Just after parlour games went out of fashion, but before Facebook, a self-employed editor might have used her idle hours for professional developments and introspections of various sorts. In particular, one such editor might have noticed that her clients had entire Human Resources departments dedicated to circulating questionnaires to help …
When editors talk about a writer’s “voice,” we usually mean something like a writer’s style or tone or stance. Even if you’ve never given much thought to this term, you’ll know what “voice” means if you can recall a moment when you, as a child, first heard “Don’t use that voice with me, …
Being an editor is easy compared to being a friend. Confusing the two is a sure path to flawed editing and fraught friendships. So what should you do if a friend or family member asks for your opinion of their latest novel? Or — a more daunting and delicate task …
If there’s a cliché image for our profession, it’s eyeglasses. Editors and librarians, it seems, should always have a pair handy, preferably hanging from a chain around the neck. We earn this image, as we earn our reputation, when we limit editing to what the eye sees. Editing is not …
The desciptive-prescriptive war is over. Long live the conversation. In the past month, my colleagues have been chatting about an article called Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism: War is Over (if you want it). Its heading perpetuates a flawed premise, but the author offers good evidence that prescriptive and descriptive can both …