“Remember books? Remember reading?”

A book would say that to some people.

What would cause someone to stop reading in their leisure time? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.

Their phone, of course.

You see it all the time in, for example, a doctor’s waiting room. People used to read magazines in waiting rooms (although I have to question the quality of some of those periodicals). Nowadays, waiting rooms don’t even have magazines anymore. People entertain themselves on their phones.

You can even see it while waiting in a long line for the restroom at a service area on the New Jersey Turnpike. People are scrolling on their phones, texting, checking email, or watching a video as they wait.

Such entertainment, while fun, has sadly taken the place of leisure reading for a lot of people.

Sometimes, when I sit on my couch scrolling on my phone, I imagine a novel jumping up to me and grabbing the electronic device, yelling, “Give me that! You two have been spending way too much time together! Remember me? Remember reading? Remember what joy it used to give you?”

It’s very humbling.

Here’s an embarrassing but true story: On a trip to Myrtle Beach one Memorial Day weekend, my husband decided to take a nap in the hotel room before dinner. I went out on our picturesque balcony with my phone and a novel that I had only just started to read. I intended to enjoy the novel, but then I decided to take pictures with my phone and text on my phone and check email on my phone and watch some cool videos on my phone and…sigh.

Yes, I know…the phone should have stayed inside the room. “But what if someone calls?” The classic excuse.

No more excuses. The late afternoon was when I used to immerse myself in novels. Lent is starting on February 22 and I have resolved that during Lent, the late afternoon and early evenings will be spent with a book. And my phone will stay on the table behind the couch. (I am no longer Catholic and I don’t observe Lent every year, but I think it’s still a good time to discipline oneself.)

How about you? What times of the day do you like to read? What do you do about distractions such as your phone?

As I have said before, I have yet to attend an editing conference (although I am planning on attending EFACON in August, by hook or by crook). There have been times, however, when I heard about a conference I could not attend and fantasized about attending—and even researched the host city and hotel to find out what they were like.

There was one thing I always looked for in my research, though—how easily I could get around. How would I get from the airport to the hotel? How would I get from the hotel to various points in the city during free time?

The most ideal mode of transportation in a large city is a subway or similar train (such as Baltimore’s Light Rail or Chicago’s El). The conference venue should be within a reasonable walking distance from a stop or station, and ideally, the airport should also have a stop or station right next to it. This certainly is less expensive than renting a car—and less stressful, too. Cars have to be parked at or near the venue, usually at a pricey daily rate.

Buses going from the airport to reasonably near the venue are also good, although the trip will tend to take quite a bit longer. Again, however, it’s less expensive than renting a car.

As for taxis and rideshare services such as Uber or Lyft, I have only taken a taxi a few times in my life, and I have never used Uber or Lyft, so I don’t know much about the cost. I suppose that accuracy is a huge plus in that one goes directly from Point A to Point B without having to walk part of the way.

Conference attendees spend a lot of money in the form of attendance fees, hotel accommodations, and meals, so organizations would do well to select host cities that make travel at least a bit easier.

By the way…the Westin Old Town Alexandria, where EFACON is slated to be, is near a Metro station. Woohoo!

If you have been to a conference in a large city, what has the transportation been like there?

Newbie editors, as I myself once was, often want to put their portfolio on their website. It seems logical to show everyone what they have worked on and how well they edited it.

Ah, but an editor must be careful. I have read from what some of my more experienced colleagues have written that many authors, simply put, do not appreciate this practice.

Think about it. Let’s say you are an author of a scientific manuscript and you give the paper to a copyeditor to edit for grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and to generally make the writing smoother and make sure the figures and tables prove what they are supposed to prove. The copyeditor does all of these things superbly and hands you a perfect manuscript. You are grateful and pleased.

But then, let’s say that the copyeditor lists your manuscript on their “works edited” portfolio. What does this say?

“This manuscript was written poorly enough that it needed an editor.”

“This manuscript needed help.”

“This author didn’t know how to write, so he/she needed an editor.”

Oh my. Are you angry yet?

This is why I personally asked my webmaster to remove the “Works Edited” page and link from my website this week. I’m not about to alienate my clients and former clients. That would be a very dumb move, to say the least.

I now prefer to rely on testimonials in order to say how talented I am as an editor. Those remain on my site and speak volumes to the excellence of my editing. Some of my colleagues insist on using a person’s full name and affiliation, for they say they it gives more credibility than simply using the name “Suzelle F.,” for example. I respectfully disagree. Having learned my lesson regarding the portfolio, I believe privacy is key. That’s why I prefer “George J.” to “George Jones, Professor of Biochemistry, Duke University.”

If you are an author who appeared on my now-defunct “Works Edited” page, my profound apologies go out to you. I had no ill intent, but I was wrong.

Let’s face it—even we editors have our spelling nemeses. I’m talking about the words and names we always have to look up because we are always misspelling them otherwise. Here are some of my personal bugaboos:

Cincinnati. I always want to write “CInncinnati.” It seems as if having a double N in every place for which an N is called would make more sense than using one N and then using two.

Millennium. I used to write “Milennium,” In order to remember the correct spelling, I now think of the French word “mille,” meaning “one thousand,” and note that this word has two L’s, just like the English word “millennium.”

Fulfill. This is a hard one because my mind always thinks that when you fulfill an order, you make it “full.” So why shouldn’t it be spelled “fullfill”? Don’t ask.

Conscientious. This one is so bad that I had to look it up as I was typing this post. I always think of a conscience, which has a C near the end but no T anywhere in it. So why should we stick a T in this adjective?

Massachusetts. Oh, this is my worst one. I tend to write “Massachussetts.” Why use two S’s the first time and two T’s near the end, but only one S the second time? It makes absolutely no sense.

This is why every editor needs access to the Merriam-Webster website, as well as the latest print edition of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. And remember—never, ever be too lazy to look up a word or name if you have any doubts as to the spelling. You don’t want to end up with egg on your face and/or make your client look foolish.

If you have any words or names that continually give you grief, feel free to share them.  

As an editor, there have come times in my career when I have had to edit while my body is sick or in pain. The last couple of weeks have been such times.

I currently have bronchitis (although it’s not as bad now, thanks to the antibiotics) and bronchitis can last for months. Hence, I have been doing an awful lot of coughing lately. So how can an editor focus when she is coughing up a storm every half hour or so?

First, I need to remember that the world does not grind to a halt because I am sick (unless my illness has me bedridden, which is another whole ball game).

Second, I assess what over-the-counter remedies I need to keep me functioning, purchase them if needed, and take them according to the directions on the container. They keep me focused and functioning—as long as the container does not say “May cause drowsiness.” If I see those words, I run!

With bronchitis, I have to figure out how bad my cough is at the moment. If I cough for just five seconds or so, I brush it off and keep working. If, however, it’s one of those can’t–breathe, ten–second–long, red–in–the–face coughing fits, it is worth it to stop my timer and get up from the computer to catch my breath (and make a doctor’s appointment). By the way, the latter kind of cough is extremely distressing, but despite this, I can continue to work soon afterwards as long as I do not also have a fever (as I did two weeks ago).

If you are about to ask me what I would do if I had COVID, the answer is, “I’ve never had it, so I don’t know how bad my symptoms would be. If I could get up and walk around without feeling horrific, I would continue to work. If I had a high fever or could not get out of bed, however, I would rest and send my husband to buy some meds for my symptoms. And in either case, I would keep testing myself and waiting for only one line to appear on the test strip.”

It’s all basically a judgment call.

Hello and Happy New Year.

I informed you in my December 18 post that I would be taking Christmas Day off blogging, and that is exactly what I did. I also informed you that I would be back on New Year’s Day, discussing my goals for 2023. I was not. This was because I was ill. I fell ill three days after Christmas with a wicked respiratory infection which quickly morphed into a severe case of bronchitis. (I am very prone to bronchitis and almost every single cold I get morphs into it very quickly.) Would you believe that after a week and a half, two doctor’s visits, tons of over-the-counter medicines and a round of antibiotics of which I am currently in the middle, I am still on the mend? The good news is that I feel better and have less symptoms every day now.

That’s enough explaining. So what are my goals for 2023?

1. I want to save up enough money to attend the EFA conference (EFACON) in Alexandria, Virginia in August. I know I recently lamented on this blog about not being able to attend the ACES Conference in Columbus, Ohio in March due to financial constraints. Since Alexandria is in my general metropolitan area, EFACON would be a good “starter conference” for me. There are many people in EFA whom I “know” from the organization’s communications, lists, and classes, and I would absolutely love to network with them.

• I want to have enough of a workflow to keep me editing every workday, with few or no “dry spells.” (Thankfully, this seems to have already begun to happen—right now I am working on two projects simultaneously.)

• (This is a more personal one.) I want to have enough courage to take people to task when they use the word “retarded” as a put-down. A lot of people think this is harmless. It’s not. Period.

Would you like to share your goals for 2023?

I could go on for a long time about the best (and worst) parts of 2022. It was a pretty good year for me; it was better than 2021, which itself was much better than 2020.

But I am talking about things on a personal level. What I really want to blog about today is how this year was for me professionally. So…let’s take a deep breath and begin.

I learned how to restore my internet connection when it goes out in the middle of an important Zoom call. By “important Zoom call,” I mean one during which someone is interviewing me for a job. When my connection suddenly went out during my interview, I initially thought that all was hopelessly lost, that I would never get the job, and that my employment at this establishment was probably not meant to be. All of this went through my mind within seconds. Then I suddenly remembered that the first thing one must do when losing an internet connection is to unplug one’s router for 30 seconds and then plug it back in. This is exactly what I did, and within a minute, my connection was revived and the interview continued. I should add that the interviewers were extremely forgiving and sympathetic, which was much appreciated.

I gained a couple of new clients through the major research university with which I have a contract, and one through a job announcement on the ACES website. That’s always a great thing.

I learned Word macros and how to use them through a class offered by the EFA. Macros are wonderful tools, but they are very much like a chainsaw; very useful, but you had better know what you are doing. That’s an exaggeration. Macros can be intimidating for someone who has never downloaded or used them, but once their keyboard shortcuts are memorized and they are practiced, editing is much more efficient—and who isn’t a fan of efficiency?

I’m looking forward to what I will accomplish in 2023. I’m planning on blogging about my goals for the coming year on or around New Year’s Day. As for Christmas, for me, it is a holiday which means an incredible amount to my faith and one during which I love to spend with family, so I am taking a break from blogging next weekend.

I hope you have a very happy, healthy holiday season.

I’ll put this simply: If you want to succeed as an editor, you have to be nice.

You might be surprised by that statement. Perhaps you have the idea that an editor corrects grammar and punctuation mistakes and rewrites sentences with angry slashes of a red pen—like your high school English teacher. Not to criticize teachers, but editors do not work the same way.

First and foremost, an editor should use the word “please” when correcting an author. Consider the following two editorial comments:

Avoid hyphenating compounds with an adverb ending in “-ly.”

Please avoid hyphenating compounds with an adverb ending in “-ly.”

Doesn’t the second comment sound much less critical? Make no mistake, the comment with “Please” is still to be taken seriously. But it “stings” the author less and makes the author more likely to say, “Oh…I learn something new every day,” rather than, “How dare this editor tell me that my writing is bad!”

Another thing an editor should do is to use more positives than negatives in comments. By negatives I mean the phrase “Do not…” or its contraction, “Don’t.” Which one of the following editorial comments would you rather read on your beloved first draft?

Please don’t hyphenate compounds with an adverb ending in “-ly.”

Please avoid hyphenating compounds with an adverb ending in “-ly.”

The first comment smacks of “You did something wrong!” while the second sounds more like a gentle correction.

Sometimes an editor has to tame his or her thoughts about an author’s glaring error. When you run across a date that is written incorrectly (much of the time it is January and the author wrote the “old” year by mistake), the first things that might come to your mind are, “OOPSY-DAISY!” or “Ouch!” Please control yourself and avoid writing such things in a comment to the author, unless the author is a very close friend (and use caution even then). Comments like these are a slap in the face and sound highly unprofessional.

Above all, remember that an author’s piece represents countless hours of hard work, and when you, as an editor, critique it, you are telling the author that their baby is ugly. At least, that is often how the author hears it. Sensitivity, along with good editing, is key.

I always check out the posts on the discussion list of the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), an organization to which I have belonged for just over four years. More than once, I have come across posts from editors who have just started their freelance business. Some of these new business owners want to know if they should have a separate banking account for their business—one that is free of their personal bank account.

I always reply to these posts with a resounding YES, YES, and YES—as do the EFA members who have been in business at least as long as I have.

I cannot imagine doing my taxes for my business using only a single personal account for everything. (I’m talking about those wonderful forms—Schedule SE, Schedule 1, and Schedule C, to name three.)

Having a separate account also allows me to see exactly how much my business is making and makes it easier to create spreadsheets which tell me my earnings, expenses, profits, and (gulp) losses, if any.

If your business is an LLC, you had best be keeping your personal and business finances separate. In the unfortunate event that a client sues you, they may go after your business assets, but not your personal assets. If they are lumped together in one account, it will give you a big headache untangling them.

There is also the psychological effect. Back when I opened my business bank account, the bank graciously gave me a ledger, a stamp, a binder of checks, and a book of preprinted deposit slips. Wow! I thought. I feel so official. I’m a real business owner now.

When I first started my business, I asked a friend who was instrumental in helping me do so whether I should have a separate business account. I was green and naïve; what did I know? She gave me the aforementioned resounding YES and I owe her a huge debt of gratitude.

As I mentioned before, I am the vice president of the board of my condo association. However, I believe should be the secretary.

Actually, the secretary and the treasurer don’t have to do anything extra besides their normal board activities, since the property manager assigned to their community prepares the minutes and takes care of the financial doings. But if it were the secretary’s responsibility to prepare the minutes, I would have been fantastic at it.

About two weeks ago, the board had its regular bimonthly meeting. A few days later, the property manager wrote up the meeting minutes and emailed them to each board member to approve before the president signed off on them. I read the minutes carefully…and automatically put on my editor’s hat.

I noticed that the date and location of the meeting were wrong; the property manager had used the previous meeting’s minutes as a template and forgotten to change them. I called that out in a reply email, giving the correct date and location.

The property manager then replaced the erroneous information with the correct date and location and sent the revised copy of the minutes to each of us. I was just about to approve them when all of a sudden…

…I noticed another item that was wrong. The property manager had, as was required, listed all of the dates for our bimonthly meetings in 2023. The dates were all supposed to be the third Tuesday of each odd-numbered month. However, I noticed that the meeting date for July was listed as the 19^th. July 19, 2023 is a Wednesday.

I pointed that out in another reply email, feeling bad for the property manager, whose work I had corrected twice. (And I was culpable as well, because I did not catch the incorrect future meeting date the first time around.) “The property manager is going to hate me,” I thought as I sent the email. “But I would be remiss if I didn’t point this out.”

And I apologized for “being nitpicky.”

Uh…yeah…I’m sorry for being an editor.

Editors, have you ever run into this kind of situation and actually apologized for finding errors?