Scheduling woes.

In Pittsburgh, I worked forty hours a week and did very little editing on the side--never more than one project at a time. I tried to get more jobs as the time to move came, but between working, being actively involved with the youth of my church, and getting ready to move across an ocean, I just didn't have time. So when we got to Portugal, I had no real work on my plate.
I was pretty pleased when I found a quality control job with a fun team for company that ensures translated ballot texts are accurate. Unfortunately, while I was hired in February, work hadn't really started then, and they weren't sure when it would start.
I aggressively started putting in quotes on Thumbtack, a website that connects people who need services (plumber, painter, editor) with professionals who have profiles on the site. The customer puts in a request, and then five professionals can quote on the request. This was very successful. I connected with one great author, and then another, and then another.
Around the same time, a press I had worked with a few times in the past started sending me books regularly to proofread or copyedit. Another press I had taken a copyediting test for said "you're hired" and sent me two books, one a children's book (fun!!) and one a 440-page copyedit (hefty!!). I also start getting emails from students looking to have their dissertations edited. (My aunt, a professor at my alma mater, had put my email on her school's webpage a YEAR ago. I'm not sure why these requests just started now.)
Just like that, I'm swamped. I'm taking a Portuguese class 16 hours a week, I'm working on five books simultaneously, and I signed up for 15 hours/week of quality control. Last week, I skipped class twice to make deadlines. I'm staying up way too late and working way less effectively because of it.
The problems, as I see it, are these:
1) I can't judge how long an author will take getting the edited manuscript back to me. This results in hard-to-predict work hours.
2) I can't say no! I'm still in the mentality of "take all the work I can get!!" even though my reality is "I can only handle half as much work!!"
3) Authors through Thumbtack obviously aren't working with me through a press, so they usually require slightly more hand holding. I love working closely with authors and working with them to become better writers, but when it comes to publishing, I don't know all that much! I'm just an editor--not an agent or a publishing expert. And I just do not feel qualified to find a press for authors. But I feel like I have to try, and I waste a lot of time researching for them because I feel like I owe it to them.
In any case, I'm thrilled to have a lot of work, I love the authors I work with, and I'm excited to figure out a balance where I'm not constantly on the verge of tears from stress and overwork! I made time to blog though, right? :)
Happy Monday! Any scheduling tips are welcome!!

My new locale.

Hello from Lisbon! Lots has happened since my last post but not much has changed--I'm still editing away, but my surroundings have changed from snowy Pittsburgh to sunny (extremely humid) Portugal! This is my first adventure in freelancing full-time; previously, I've always had an alternative full-time job that allowed me to pursue freelancing on the side. So while the hubby finishes his PhD, I've been able to apply to some exciting new jobs via Craigslist, strangely enough, as well as the jobs listed by the International Association for Professional Writers and Editors (IAPWE), of which I just became a member. We'll see what pans out!

Because I've known my freelance career would suddenly have a lot more time to thrive come 2016, I had been trying to get in with a bunch of presses so I could have relatively steady editing work. The good news is that I was accepted as a freelancer by five new presses! The bad news is that I've edited only two books between the five of them. So I'm kind of back to square one. But I have some good things around the corner, and I'm excited to blog about how the journey goes, both as a record for myself and, hopefully, a helpful source for other new freelancers.

And I get to do it all surrounded by the delicious aromas of Portuguese pastries. *Contented sigh.*

Ghost writing or editing?

Sometimes I get sent a manuscript that really should not have been accepted.

Bradley and Kevin strolled towards the exit of the school. They walked out of he main entrance into the clean, cool air, it's a relief after being inside half of the afternoon. . .
Bradley and Kevin continued walking through the busy corridors. They looked up at Max and Eric, who stood by the entrance of the school, ready to leave. . . He pushed the door open and felt the hot air blow onto his face from the sub. . .
Bradley laughed as he continued towards the exit of the school. 

Yes, the protagonist just left the school three times in one page of text. Not only were events written multiple times, but the tense changed from past to present, the narrator switched between first and third person, the characters were inconsistent, and the punctuation was frankly atrocious. I realized after editing about five pages in an hour that I would never be able to do a satisfactory copy edit in the prescribed time, and I wasn't even sure a mere copy edit would help the manuscript--it needed serious developmental help.

So I asked my managing editors if they wanted it back, and they said the imprint editor was unresponsive and that I could make any changes I thought appropriate (the benefits of sticking with a press for multiple years!). Thus began my adventure in rewriting an entire manuscript.

After almost four weeks of working until smoke came out of my brain, I had reduced the manuscript to 200 pages and created a feasible plot line. I was proud of maintaining the author's story line (for the most part), characters (even the ones I didn't like), and voice as much as possible.

It was a similar experience to working with my Italian author--he hands me a few pages of written-out text that I then type up in proper English (not instead of non, etc.). Except in that case I get paid and only have to do six to ten pages at a time ;)

Now that it's over, I think I should either be a co-author on the book and/or put ghost writer on my resume.

Rejections.

As Brian and I get ready to move to Portugal in January, a lot of things have kicked into high gear, including my freelance radar. I would really love to be working at least twenty hours a week on freelance editing projects that actually pay me! Imagine that! However, it's hard to balance that desire with the fact I'm still working full time right now (in addition to everything else).

But I'm on a listserv for copyeditors, and one job-op came up that paid one to two thousand per three-week project. That was literally a godsend. So I email the company and they send me a copyediting test. I stress a ton about it. Note to self: relax when it comes to copyediting tests. I know my stuff, and it's not like it's closed book! I would recommend reading over it a couple times, marking everything you know for sure and looking up what you don't. Then give it a couple days where you don't look at it at all! Or think about it! Then you have a fresh mind when you look at it again before you send it back.

So anyway, I feel good about the test, but I also know that if the company is paying that well, there will be some stiff competition. In fact, I pretty much told myself I wasn't getting it.

Weeks go by. No wait, I mean months. I submitted my application mid-June. Today I found out I didn't get it. Sorry folks, no happy ending. Despite telling myself I wasn't getting it, a small part of me still really believed I would. Believed and hoped and every other optimistic word. So yes, it really stunk to read "Unfortunately, we are not able to add you to our list of freelancers at this time."

Rejections happen, though. I'm not sure it's possible to have success without the rejections. After I forwarded my rejection letter to Bri, he sent this message back:

[O]ne of the thought leaders at Bell labs . . . was responsible for inventing a lot of important things (like satellite communications, for one) and was just an all around brilliant and well-respected guy. In addition to all his work at the labs, on the side he liked to write nonfiction articles for magazines like Popular Science and Scientific American, and liked to write science fiction stories. 

I guess he was pretty good at both . . . But they said that in the course of trying to get things published, he did get plenty of rejections. After he died, they realized that he had saved every rejection letter he'd ever gotten---which was literally thousands. 

I thought that was really interesting, because when you see great people, lots of times you only see their great successes and accomplishments, and you think that must be all there is to it. But I don't think that's ever really the case.

 

So I'll eat my humble pie and say thank goodness for supportive spouses, and then I'll try to get through this last horrendous manuscript for one of my non-paying freelance jobs :) Happy weekend.

Dialogue tags and verbs.

This is kind of a follow up post to my Commas and Dialogue post back in September 2014, although now I want to focus less on punctuation and more on diction, or word choice. We've all had the seventh grade English teacher who hands out a list of verbs we should use instead of go, walk, eat, etc. Maybe this is an editor thing, but I get a real thrill when I find just the right word to describe the situation: I didn't just run through the rainy woods, I slogged through them. Yes, I did eat on Thanksgiving, but how much more descriptive (and accurate, unfortunately) if I use the word "gorged."

The idea behind careful diction is not to sound intelligent or to change up what words you use, but rather to communicate what is happening to the reader more precisely. Interestingly, in dialogue, it may be better to not use a dialogue tag ("said so-and-so"), and when one is needed, use said or asked 90% of the time. But how, you may ask, can you tell the reader that your character is distraught or scared or ecstatic? And won't readers get tired of said, asked, and replied? Two words: body language.

“Are you serious?” The first man huffed impatiently.
No dialogue tag, but the reader clearly knows the first man said this, and he isn't happy. Notice the contrast with the next sentence.

“Are you serious?” Ms. Williams bent down and examined Nora's small, determined face.
Same dialogue, totally different feel. Now there is a concerned teacher trying to gauge a child's attitude.

In certain situations, it may be useful to use other dialogue verbs to communicate a scene, like shouted or muttered. But instead of right-clicking "said" and seeing what synonyms come up, consider leaving it, or taking out the dialogue tag altogether and adding in something else that the character who is speaking is doing, like raising his eyebrows or pouting or grinning.

And with that, she smiled at her reflection in the computer screen. "Job well done." She clicked the publish button and shared her post with her eight followers.

Up and coming.

I know it's been a while--life happens, am I right? I just wanted to mention some things I'm working on.

1) Enrico and I continue to work on his manuscript in tobacco and coffee shops. Very rewarding to work so closely with an author! I've been charged with researching presses to which we can submit the completed manuscript, so I'm looking forward to (and feel a little apprehensive about) that.

2) My laptop of six years just went kaput, complete with flickering screen and the smell of burning electronics. Now that I've put my massive 8 lb companion to rest, I get to research a lightweight, more portable option that will be easy on my editing eyes. Until we find a good deal, I get to use Brian's old laptop! Yay.

3) I've been feeling like my editing has plateaued lately--I'm not getting any worse, but I'm not getting any better. Certainly I am reminded of certain rules as I research them for my Zharmae books, but I want something a little more structured. I'm thinking an online class. This might not happen until we get to Portugal, but I'll be researching freelance and editing online classes, as well as books that will help improve my editing. I'll probably go back to my college book lists for those :)

4) Waiting to hear back on the results of a copy edit test I took for Lachesis, a press similar to Zharmae except way more established that will *hopefully* pay regularly. Fingers crossed.

Life is good, folks! Upcoming blog posts: transitions in dialogue, changing narrators (or points of view), and character development.

Ellipses...

   The past weeks have been full of editing! There was recently a change up in the managing editors at one of the presses I freelance for, and my goodness, I've edited four books in the last six weeks, in addition to working with my good friend Enrico on his manuscript! It's good to be busy.
   I'm not sure if a certain manuscript that has a repeated flaw makes me oversensitive, but I have a new editing pet peeve that I see everywhere: ellipses.
   Ellipses indicate something that is missing in writing. I remember learning about how to use them in quoted material: if you don't want to include a complete quote, use an ellipsis to indicate where you left words out. (That should not be done to change the meaning of the quote, of course.) However, despite not editing any technical or nonfiction lately, two genres more prone to having cited quotations that could include ellipses, I have been over run with ellipses.
   The following examples are in the first chapter of a book I recently edited (which was a really fantastic read).

  

The dragon-like jaws ripping into the car…the jaws of life…Amy! 

 But because it was wrong. It looked…hollow. Hungry.  

 Something familiar…Dark wooden beams divided the plaster of the low sloping ceiling on one side.   

 If I could just shake the feeling of, well, doom sounded a bit melodramatic but…

Breathe.

The abrupt silence is worse than screaming. I hang upside down…my arm dangles, useless…thoughts, slow and stupid. Smell of hot metal and burnt rubber. Metal taste on tongue. I start to turn…

   Chicago and I have a slight difference in opinion about ellipses in fiction. Chicago accepts ellipses (or suspension points, as they call them) in dialogue to indicate faltering or interrupted speech (13.39). This is physically painful for me to read, and this is coming from a girl who likes obeying rules (grammar rules and otherwise). But I feel like I have a good reason: ellipses in fiction do not communicate anything other than a pause. That's it. A reader sees an ellipses and they understand it as a pause in whatever was happening, whether it be speech, thought, or action.
   But writers! You can do so much better! That pause could be occurring for a million and a half reasons! Is your character out of breath and panting out an answer to questions? Or perhaps the character is thoughtful and is carefully choosing words. Maybe the character is boldly emphasizing his words, slowly and distinctly saying each one for a large crowd to hear. Is it a slight hitch in the conversation or a long, awkward pause? I challenge writers to bypass ellipses in favor of strong, intentional writing that communicates what a character is doing, thinking, feeling, instead of just pausing.
   I'll just leave you with my comment to the author on one more excerpt from the same manuscript as above. It's a good example of what can be done when you replace ellipses with character development.

Amy smiled back, almost reassured. “It looks cozy in here.” She gave my room a critical once over. “I thought with this dark little attic…and dad is so unreasonable…but it feels like home.”[OS1] 

---

 [OS1]Is she saying the first two phrases to herself, quieter? And then the last more loudly to reassure herself and Em that this is a good place for her? This is an example of when the reader may be confused by the ellipses--they don't communicate how Amy is talking, just that she pauses occasionally. Think about rewriting this part to communicate how Amy is saying this line.