The Final Touch

Some of my favorite lines of poetry are these, which always come to my mind some­time dur­ing this early-summer month — usu­ally on a gor­geous, blue-sky, bright-and-sunny, perfect-temperature day like today:

“And what is so rare as a day in June? / Then, if ever, come per­fect days…” My high school lit­er­a­ture teacher, Ken Tan­gen, gave us extra credit for mem­o­riz­ing this sec­tion of the pro­found poem, and I’ve never com­pletely for­got­ten it. You really need the entire pre­ced­ing stanza — indeed prob­a­bly the whole, lengthy poem, called “The Vision of Sir Laun­fal” — to fully appre­ci­ate its mean­ing, which goes beyond the delights of sum­mer to the free gift of sal­va­tion. But for now, I’ll stick with this pas­sage and revel in this beau­ti­ful June day:

.….….…

‘Tis heaven alone that is given away,
’Tis only God may be had for the ask­ing;
There is no price set on the lav­ish sum­mer,
And June may be had by the poor­est comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come per­fect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we lis­ten,
We hear life mur­mur, or see it glisten

.….….…

–James Rus­sell Low­ell (19^th cen­tury poet)

I’m get­ting really excited for June 27! That’s the day I’m attend­ing an all-day work­shop called “Edi­to­r­ial Boot Camp” in Min­neapo­lis, led by two women with years of pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence in the copy­edit­ing field. Not only will they cover some aspects of proof­read­ing and copy­edit­ing, but they’ll also help par­tic­i­pants look at var­i­ous prac­tices for mak­ing the most of one’s own edi­to­r­ial busi­ness. I’ve been “learn­ing on the job” so far, as far as run­ning my own busi­ness goes, so I’m eager to gain some time-tested insights from Laura Poole and Car­olyn Has­sett, who have a com­bined 30+ years of editorial-business expe­ri­ence. I’ve already been get­ting to know Laura a bit via email and can sin­cerely rec­om­mend her, and this work­shop, to any of you who might have an interest.

Here is some info that comes directly from Laura and Carolyn:

Come to this unique, inten­sive pro­gram designed for those want­ing to break into the pub­lish­ing field as a copy edi­tor or proof­reader – and also for those who sim­ply want to boost their skills.

Sun­day, June 27, 2010 | 9am-6pm
Mall of Amer­ica (North Shore Room) | Min­neapo­lis, MN
Cost: $450/person (includes mate­ri­als)

Reg­is­tra­tion is now active, and we have room for 25 atten­dees; reg­is­ter now to reserve your space! (Scroll down the page a bit; their July work­shop is listed first, then the June 27 one.)

This will be a jam-packed full-day, hands-on train­ing. Here’s what we’ll cover (and more!):

• Overview of the Pub­lish­ing Process
  Style and Ref­er­ence Guides | MS Word Opti­miza­tion, Cus­tomiza­tion, Plug-ins, and Shortcuts

• Copy­edit­ing
  Spelling | Punc­tu­a­tion | Gram­mar | Style | Fact Check­ing | Queries | Author Voice
  Copy­righted Mate­r­ial | Style Sheets | Online Tools | Topic Specialties

• Proof­read­ing
  Stage of Proofs | Mark­ing | Mate­ri­als | Style and Spec Sheets | Steps | Tools | Spe­cialty Work | PDF Proofing

• Work Prac­tices
  Tips and Tricks | Time Man­age­ment | Com­mu­ni­ca­tion | Deal­ing with Problems

• Busi­ness Prac­tices
  Get­ting and Keep­ing Clients | Resumes | Sam­ple Edits | Rates and Billing | Follow-Up Options | Net­work­ing | Pro­fes­sion­al­ism | Deadlines

I had seen Laura’s infor­ma­tion on LinkedIn for a sim­i­lar work­shop she was host­ing in North Car­olina in March. I wrote and lamented that I couldn’t make it to some­thing that far away but to let me know if she was ever going to be in Min­nesota. Lo and behold!, a cou­ple months later, she emailed to say they would be in Min­neapo­lis! I know I have some Min­nesota friends who just might be inter­ested in this, so please do check it out if you are one of them!

If this work­shop isn’t some­thing specif­i­cally for you, I hope you’ll still be inter­ested to check back in here in late June to hear about what I expe­ri­enced and read my follow-up thoughts.

Oh, dear friends, DON’T MISS this inspir­ing video from Hun­gary, of all places! The intri­cacy of the dance — so many peo­ple in all the right places, their move­ments so matched and pre­cise! How long do you think they prac­ticed (and where, so as not to give it away in advance?!) to make this work?! (Or did they just cut the images of peo­ple who got their moves wrong, as I surely would have done?! )

If you are a Chris­t­ian, this likely astounds you on another level as well: that a once-Communist nation could have such a bold and broad Chris­t­ian pres­ence… that they would be allowed to cel­e­brate their faith in a cen­tral plaza of Budapest (as some com­menters on YouTube have noted, it’s doubt­ful such would even be allowed in “the land of the free”). I am not a con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian — far from it. My take would not be that Chris­tians should be able to prac­tice their faith so pub­licly but that all believ­ers of any life-affirming creed should be able to do so.

And in a coun­try where many (if not most) Chris­tians pride our­selves on hav­ing sent “mis­sion­ar­ies to Africa” and hes­i­tant to acknowl­edge that there are now more Chris­tians in Africa than in North Amer­ica and that per­haps we would ben­e­fit from receiv­ing some African mis­sion­ar­ies here, I think one place we tend to for­get about is Europe. Or to the extent we think about it, we pic­ture ancient cathe­drals, glo­ri­ous yet empty, except for camera-toting tourists, and we dis­miss the coun­tries of Europe as places where church was so tied to state that it has all but died out. Well, appar­ently not in Budapest, Hun­gary. See for your­self:

Res­ur­rec­tion Sun­day Dance, Budapest, Hungary

Sorry for the short notice on this first one, but if you can fit it in, you won’t regret it!

For six months now, I’ve been tak­ing an online course called “Social Net­work­ing with Sab­rina Gib­son.” Sab­rina has over 15 years’ expe­ri­ence in the inter­net field and is widely con­sid­ered an expert in up-t0-the-minute infor­ma­tion and strate­gies to help business-people use social media (Twit­ter, Face­book, LinkedIn, blog­ging, etc.) to get the word out about what they have to offer to others.

Today (June 9) from 12:30–2:00 p.m. (PDT), Sab­rina is offer­ing a FREE webi­nar on get­ting the most out of a Face­book Page for the sake of your busi­ness. You can still reg­is­ter this morn­ing at: How to Use Face­book for Your Busi­ness.

If you can’t make this event, I strongly urge you to try to work the fol­low­ing two into your schedule:

• June 30, 9:00–10:30 a.m. (PDT) How to Use LinkedIn for Your Busi­ness and
• July 28, 9:00–10:30 a.m. (PDT) How to Blog for Busi­ness.

Sab­rina is dynamic and fun, and has a TON of infor­ma­tion to share! I’ve had a blast learn­ing from her, and I’m cer­tain you will too! (Even if you don’t have a busi­ness to mar­ket, you might still want to check these out for fun. Face­book Pages can be used for non-business pur­poses as well; LinkedIn is intended for pro­fes­sion­als of any sort, whether you work for some­one else or for your­self; and blog­ging… well, blog­ging is just plain fun!)

I just dis­cov­ered the most incred­i­ble blog! #1: The writ­ing is excel­lent, so it’s an absolute plea­sure to read. And #2: It’s all about my favorite sub­ject — mat­ters of faith and meet­ing God in daily life. If you do noth­ing else today, you MUST visit “won­ders never cease” by Rebecca Ram­sey.

I knew noth­ing of Becky (as she signs her blog posts) before this evening, but I love her already! She is so warm and per­son­able, down-to-earth and “real.” But let me back up: She actu­ally found me on Twit­ter, and I’m so hon­ored that she did! When­ever I get a notice that some­one new is fol­low­ing me, I go to their pro­file to read their bio and some of their tweets to get to know them a bit. If they have a blog or web­site link, I often click over to it — which is pre­cisely what I did within a heart­beat of read­ing Becky’s Twit­ter bio. I mean, how could I resist? She describes her­self as one who “[searches] life for God’s fin­ger­prints and then [writes] about them, … an author, a mom, a cof­fee drinker, and dreamer of French pas­tries.” I fell in love with Span­ish ones myself when I lived in Spain for five months dur­ing col­lege, but every­thing else? — holy cow, how much more could we have in common?!

Lis­ten to (or read) the sub­ti­tle to Becky’s blog: “frisk­ing the ordi­nary for the pres­ence of God.” Isn’t that GREAT?! I just LOVE her cre­ativ­ity — with words, images, blog design, every­thing! Her posts are packed full of pho­tos and videos. Her right side­bar is as rich as the posts them­selves with its unique sec­tion titles, lo-o-ong list of rec­om­mended blogs, and even an inspir­ing quote and a modern-day psalm. This is not just a blog; it’s an EXPERIENCE!

Becky’s been blog­ging (at least at this address) since April 2008, so I dare­say that, even if she doesn’t post every sin­gle day, there will be more than enough food for thought to use for my daily devo­tions for a good long time. Not that I’m always very good at doing daily devo­tions, but this work of faith and labor of love (though she makes it look effort­less — not like “work” or “labor” at all) points to God’s grace in such a gen­tle, per­cep­tive way that it makes me want to get back in the habit, start­ing tomor­row.