If you are trying to get work, you are waiting. Waiting for responses to your applications and follow-up emails. Waiting for responses to your interviews. Waiting for good news.

You are locked in a season of waiting.

Everybody hates to wait.

But this season of waiting might be preparing you for something better.

“Really? How so?” you ask.

You can use this waiting period to sharpen or improve your skills. For example, during much of this past summer I tried to get more editing clients and gigs…and I waited for them to come. While I waited, I took a course in AI for editors and finally learned to understand AI as it applies to my work. In 2015 and 2016, while applying to laboratory science jobs and waiting for responses, I refreshed my lab skills and learned new ones by taking courses in cell culture and biomanufacturing at a community college. I obtained more interviews after completing them.

If you are a copyeditor, you can find editing exercises in a book or online to keep you on top of your game. The Copyeditor’s Workbook, by Büky, Schwartz, and Einsohn, is a good example of a resource for this.

The “something better” for which waiting is preparing you might not even have to do with work. If you need a new car, you have more time to go car shopping, and so you might end up making a better decision on a car. Or you might have more time to spend with your spouse and end up making your marriage even better. (I would imagine that you might similarly make your relationship with your children better by having more time to spend with them, but I hesitate to say this outright, because I am not a parent myself.)

What do you think might be the “something better” for which waiting is getting you ready?

With Thanksgiving coming up this week, I want to give thanks for the good that has happened both this year and in the past regarding Fiedler Editorial.

I gained a new client in the form of a gentleman who asked me to edit the website for his business. He told me, “On a scale of one to ten, your editing was an eleven.” (Thanks are due to a good friend of mine, who put us in touch with each other.)

I continued to receive steady work from a longtime client (courtesy of another good friend), especially at the end of last year, making me busy enough that I could not take on any additional editing until January of this year. It felt so good to be that busy and needed.

I took Erin Servais’ course, “AI for Editors,” which made me finally understand AI. If you don’t understand it, I would highly recommend the course. Ms. Servais is an excellent instructor.

I’m also thankful for things that occurred before this year. I am thankful for my HP laptop and being able to buy it in 2020. Yes, it is now five years old, and it does have its quirks, for which I often yell at it. But I love it.

Also in 2020, a former grad school professor introduced me to the facilitators of an editing pool at my alma mater; we edit research manuscripts written by the school’s scientific researchers. I absolutely love doing that kind of editing.

In 2019, I was given the opportunity to edit the master’s thesis of a student at a well-known research institution, and my editing was called “wonderful” by the student and “5-star” by their advisor.

And I am thankful for my husband, who gave me the seed money to open a business bank account, and a good friend, who gave me great business advice.

What are you thankful for regarding your profession?

This past Friday, I turned 52.

As I put the past year behind me (that is, most of 2025), I am reflecting on what I accomplished at 51.

My editing business, Fiedler Editorial LLC, turned seven years old.

I gained another client in the spring by word of mouth (thanks to one of my best friends) and the client was very pleased with my edits and revisions to his website.

I edited a scientific literature review, and the author was pleased.

I helped get out the 2025 trade and retail catalogs of another good friend’s furniture  company, and from what I heard, the company enjoyed good sales. I also worked on its website and marketing emails.

I edited a new booklet that my church put out for a new Bible study. This booklet contained many links and QR codes, all of which I checked as part of my editing. A few of them were wrong. I saved the participants a few headaches.

I fastidiously educated myself on AI by taking a wonderful course taught by Erin Servais. I finally learned how to understand AI and how to use AI in editing, although I have only used it in the homework for the class. I learned that I don’t like AI, and so I do not use it in my editing.

Of course, not everything about the past year was good. My father passed away in March, and I was forced to temporarily shut down my editing business for about three weeks while my mother and I dealt with first the hospital, then the hospice, then the funeral arrangements. I was very blessed that my most consistent client (the furniture company) was so understanding during this time.

My biggest aim now is to get more clients. I want to be booked weeks in advance. I am posting on this blog and on LinkedIn, keeping my website and professional profiles up to date, and reaching out on LinkedIn. I just started reading The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors by Erin Brenner, and I trust that I will gain valuable ideas from it.

Here’s to an even better year!

My first-ever virtual conference took place September 17 to 19. It was for one of my professional organizations, American Copy Editors Society (ACES). It was huge, with over 500 attendees, I believe.

Yet it felt so small, because, like all the other participants, I attended in my home—in my case, in the little office I set up in the smaller bedroom of my condo. And I was by myself the whole time, save for the people on my laptop screen.

Now that I have attended a virtual conference, I can say that there are advantages and disadvantages compared to an in-person conference.

First, it really doesn’t matter what you wear. I wore classy T-shirts, but not the fancy blouses I wore to the in-person EFA conference two years ago. I also wore sweatpants. Nobody could see them. Now, I am a person who works well and efficiently in sweats and T-shirts. Not everybody does, and if you find yourself feeling lazy in such attire, then dress to impress, even if you are only impressing your laptop.

Second, there are much fewer expenses. No airfare and no hotel room. Only the registration fee (which isn’t exactly cheap, but less expensive than the same fee at an in-person conference).

The biggest disadvantage of a virtual conference, however, is that networking is much more difficult—and a large part of the reason people go to conferences is to network, right? VCON 25 had a feature after each day of sessions in which people would enter a “welcome room” and then go into a chat room, where you could see an avatar for each person, hear their voice, and have a conversation. Not a zillionth as much fun as meeting people at a welcome reception in a hotel.

And although the sessions were wonderfully informative for the most part—so much so that I downloaded the slide decks from four of them—let’s face it: it’s tiresome to sit on your chair for hours viewing webinar after webinar or listening to a keynote speech. Especially when your chair is not ergonomic, like mine isn’t.

All in all, I have to say that a virtual conference is all the information of an in-person conference with none of the fun. I don’t think I will do this again.