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Happy to be back


I like to joke that that copy editing is the nerdiest part of publishing and certainly the geekiest kind of editing. So why do I do it? What do I get out of it?

Aside from being an unabashed nerd myself, I enjoy a good puzzle. I always have. Who doesn't like cross-referencing facts? Who doesn't love checking tenses and pronouns? Who doesn't enjoy sifting through line after line, hunting for errors and missteps, and verifying style rules? Okay, maybe a lot of people don't, but I do. It's a puzzle every time; examining every piece, checking the gems for flaws, mending and finessing the handiwork of others as gently but rigorously as possible...

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For a while, I tried other kinds of editing, but copy editing has always been the most satisfying—I get lost in it, adore it. So it's little wonder I've wandered back into it after other careers didn't pan out. I've previously considered freelancing as a copy editor (hence setting up this site in the first place), but other opportunities arose then, and I gave them a shot. But now I'm back and eager to work with anyone needing help getting their project to the finish line, to give their hard work the polish it deserves. 

I'm eager to be that palm at the end of the mind—where ideas become facts, where projects and hard work become fully realized—for writers seeking my help with mending and finessing their handiwork.


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Other posts of interest

Review: FTL, Y'all!, eds. Trotman and Lafrenais

This past summer, I read FTL, Y'all! Tales From the Age of the $200 Warp Drive , a sci-fi anthology of graphic short stories edited by C. Spike Trotman and Amanda Lafrenais. Because I finished it less recently than not, I'll keep this review short. Perhaps most of all, I loved the diversity and representation among these stories. People of color, LGBTQ, protagonists from various backgrounds with varied goals, and more. The stories were imaginative, too, with no two quite like each other. All good for an anthology in my opinion. That said, it is an anthology, so it has its ups and downs; not all stories in it are created equal. While on the one hand, that's the basis of its variety, it underpins both its rewards—and its short comings. There were a good many stories I genuinely loved, and even among the ones I loved less, there were several I still found thought provoking and felt were still very much worth having read. And those I really didn't click with? It may ...
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Medit: Everything wrong with "interesting"

I had a English professor who would roll her eyes at students who said "interesting" when discussing reading assignments: "I think this passage is so interesting " or "This poem is more interesting than the others" or what have you. She'd needle the students with "What does that even mean?" It's lost its meaning, the accusation goes; it's vacuous, it offers no substance, it does little if any work, and so on. Before writing this post, I reflected on this word's problems  over on Twitter . The trouble is finding good alternatives, which has baffled me in the past, likely because I hadn't really bothered to figure it all out. As such, I decided to blog about it! It's important to note that it isn't necessarily  wrong  to say "interesting." It's just better to avoid it if one can. I still use it now and then in conversation, and I'm sure you will, too, even after reading this post. It signals wha...
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