The Final Touch

I am so delighted to share with you the promo video for a soon-to-be-released book I’ve had the honor of edit­ing. Author Bathsheba Smithen is only in her mid-20s, but she has wis­dom beyond her years. Watch the video (Bathsheba is the first indi­vid­ual in it)… and then read the book’s Fore­word, below, which she also gave me the priv­i­lege of writing:

Editor’s Fore­word

“All is van­ity and a chas­ing after wind. … So I turned to con­sider wis­dom and mad­ness and folly…” (Eccle­si­astes 1:14 and oth­ers; 2:12, NRSV)

When Bathsheba Smithen first invited me to write this Fore­word, I replied with a laugh, “You want a pasty white girl from small-town Min­nesota to intro­duce a book by an African Amer­i­can from Wash­ing­ton, D.C.?!” Read the rest of this entry »

I have been so blessed in my work as a free­lance copy edi­tor to meet some truly inspir­ing peo­ple I would never have met oth­er­wise! I’d like to intro­duce you to one of the busiest of them, I’m quite cer­tain: David E. Wat­ters.

Some­times my copy edit­ing crosses over into the oppor­tu­nity to do some orig­i­nal writ­ing, as it did when an arti­cle was urgently needed for the April “10,000 Cou­ples” web-magazine for which I serve as copy edi­tor. I hope you’ll take time to read the entire arti­cle here, to see pho­tos and a rel­e­vant side­bar, and per­haps even to sub­scribe to “10,000 Cou­ples” if you wish (it’s entirely free, and though you can read the whole e-mag with­out sub­scrib­ing, doing so has its perks — like allow­ing you to post com­ments). But to give you a teaser, here’s a bit from my arti­cle, and a video mes­sage from David him­self:
Read the rest of this entry »

photo © 2005 JP Esper­ança | more info (via: Wylio)

This morn­ing, I took the time to fol­low a few Face­book links posted by peo­ple I know. Each took me to a piece of fine writ­ing recently posted in cyber­space. The arti­cles are quite dif­fer­ent from one another, but what they all have in com­mon is the high cal­iber with which they are writ­ten. I’ll pro­vide links to the arti­cles — as well as to two other exam­ples of fine writ­ing I came across recently — at the end of this post.

Some peo­ple are not con­vinced that the qual­ity of their writ­ing — cor­rect­ness of punc­tu­a­tion, accu­racy of spelling, smooth­ness of sen­tence flow, and so on — really mat­ters. “Peo­ple know what I mean!” groused one writer for whom I used to proof­read. “And if they don’t get it, they’re not the kind of read­ers I want read­ing my stuff any­way.” Well! Read the rest of this entry »

The fol­low­ing video pretty much speaks for itself. There are vary­ing view­points about whether an edi­tor should post his/her rates on a blog/website, but some of you have a gen­uine need to know, and your ques­tions gave me a great oppor­tu­nity to try out using video as a way to answer ques­tions. It was fun to do, though the learn­ing curve (at least for me) was a bit steep! Par­don the imper­fec­tions! (I do like, and I hope you will as well, the “inten­tional imper­fec­tions” of the Ani­moto* back­ground I opted to use — I think they make the whole thing artsy and fun!)

Oh, by the way, for those of you who don’t know me very well yet, the fact that my eyes dart back and forth is NOT because I’m speed-reading cue cards! It’s because I have a con­gen­i­tal con­di­tion called nys­tag­mus that affects the mus­cles of my eyes. Sorry it doesn’t look like I’m mak­ing eye con­tact with you!

Please let me know if you have any fur­ther ques­tions about how I might assist you with your writ­ing. And remem­ber: not just books; I’ll be glad to help with ad copy, school papers, resumes, let­ters, and more.

I invite you to view this and other videos on my YouTube chan­nel, “Final­TouchEdit.” If you find some­thing you like there, please click “Like.” I’d also love to hear from you, so please leave a com­ment here and/or on YouTube. And if you know some­one else who might be inter­ested in learn­ing about my ser­vices (or in see­ing the dar­ling cat video on my chan­nel!), please pass the links/URLs along to them. Thanks!

* http://​cmp​.ly/5

‘I’m so con­fused!’ Photo by brain­loc on Stock​.Xchng​.com

For some rea­son, a lot of peo­ple are con­fused about when to use “it’s” (with the apos­tro­phe) and when to use “its” (with­out the apos­tro­phe). One of them is a con­trac­tion, the other a possessive.

If nuances of good writ­ing make you feel some­thing like the fel­low in the pic­ture above, you are not alone! But take heart! I’m about to lend a help­ing hand.

Some­one sug­gested to me that maybe the con­fu­sion comes about because it has been so ingrained in us that pos­ses­sives use apos­tro­phes, so we tend to assume “it’s” is the pos­ses­sive. Well, per­haps. But don’t for­get words like these, which are pos­ses­sives with­out apos­tro­phes: hers, his, yours, ours, mine, theirs. All these words are called pos­ses­sive pro­nouns. And guess what?! So is its! There is no apos­tro­phe in any of them! Look at the fol­low­ing examples:

“Did you take her books or ours?”

“Nei­ther. I took his books. You don’t have yours?”

“I only have one of mine. All I found of my math book was its jacket, so Jim and Lana let me bor­row theirs.”

“Its” is the pos­ses­sive pro­noun replac­ing “the book’s”: “the book’s jacket” = “its jacket.”

But notice the dif­fer­ence here:“It’s time to get to school.” In this sen­tence, “it’s” is called a con­trac­tion because it “con­tracts” or pulls together the two words “it” and “is.” The fol­low­ing con­trac­tions are also famil­iar to you — and note their apos­tro­phes: don’t, won’t, can’t, doesn’t, weren’t, aren’t, and more. Remem­ber­ing these con­trac­tions will, I hope, help you to remem­ber that “it is” also calls for an apos­tro­phe when con­tracted (or, as I like to say, smushed) into “it’s.”

One final point: NEVER EVER is it cor­rect to write its’. Never!!

Was this punc­tu­a­tion tip help­ful? I’d love to be your GPS (that is, gram­mar, punc­tu­a­tion, and spelling) nav­i­ga­tor for other quan­daries you’d like assis­tance with. The first five peo­ple to post ques­tions which are cho­sen as the topic of future posts will each be awarded 15 min­utes of proof­read­ing as a free gift from me (that’s a $5 — $10 value or more, depend­ing on the pro­fes­sional and the type of work needed) as my thanks!

Do you have an ad, a let­ter, a blog post, a resume you’d like proof­read? I look for­ward to your ques­tions and sharing!

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.