Just had the occasion to search on the term line editing for a letter I am writing, and I came across these two interesting posts:

DeepGenre: Line Editing in 10 Easy Steps

Brooklyn Arden: Principles of Line-Editing

My favorite quote on the current political environment, as heard on MSNBC:

"It's the subtle revisionism that's the new form of denial."
-- Richard Wolffe

Long post on concerts coming, but I just looked up at my computer screen and saw this Yahoo! photo without a caption or explanation, and I burst out laughing. I'm desperately trying to think of what someone would interview this dog about ...

Last week I went up to visit my sister and then go to her hairstylist .... two and a half hours north ...

(yes, this is why I have to work all night on freelance projects ... I drive 5 hr in one day for a haircut)

... and I got to see my niece after she arrived home from kindergarten. She got very excited about "her book" and had my sister go get it from upstairs so she could show me. My sister said, "Where is it, on the dresser?" and she said yes, and then turned to me and said, "I wrote a book about going to kindergarten. I finished a book before you! I have a book and you're still writing yours!" And my sister got this half horrified and half hysterical look on her face, and looked at me, and I started laughing!! How funny! I said, "I'd better get going on my book!! You already have one written!!" And then we all read her book together, about her locker and her recess and her friends. So cute. Much better than mine will be!!

Okay, Schizo, you are ON!!

We are back to 100 Words starting in October.

It'll do me good, dag nabbit.


"I am writing to leave a small fossil that says I lived pressed into the medium that killed me."
--Sandra Kohler

Despite what I hear on the street, there are many, many kinds of editors. Inevitably when I meet someone for the first time and I say I have recently moved from being a production editor to working as a freelance copy editor, this person fantasizes aloud about my sitting in a large leather chair under an amber lamp scribbling away on a 500-page manuscript on my lap, taking copious notes and making sweeping changes, then engaging the author in long discussions that lead to a major breakthrough and eventually improve the novel.

I do none of these things of course, as I consider this to be developmental editing, which I have done on occasion but find to be out of my comfort zone at this point in my career. I have great admiration for people who do this, and I admit to feeling jealousy at times. To be able to get right to the heart of the work, to see how to best express the author's intended meaning, then to steer the author into seeing how to bring the characters and story to their highest level through revision ... it's quite a bit of magic to me.

Here is an interesting post by a woman who apparently does just this in children's publishing. I think it's fascinating.

"People are not confident about using hyphens anymore, they're not really sure what they are for," said Angus Stevenson, editor of the Shorter OED.

Apparently the Shorter OED has something against hyphens and 16,000 have now been removed. Luckily I don't use the OED for anything or I'd have to spend hours looking every term up again.

I just now read that Brett Somers passed away on Saturday at the age of 83. I'm so sad to hear this, especially after recently losing Charles Nelson Reilly.

I eat lunch from 2 to 3 every weekday for the sole purpose of watching the Match Game rerun on GSN network at 2:30. It is the best game show ever, and it makes me laugh every single time. They were all so quick and funny, and Gene Rayburn was a great host.

I just read this from an interview in Playbill:

When asked why she thinks "Match Game" is still so popular today, Somers paused and then answered, "Because of the fact that there was no structure to it. It was just six people having a good time and teasing one another. There was never any meanness. And people really sensed when Charles [Nelson Reilly] would jerk his head and go, 'She seems a little odd today' — they knew there was no meanness in it. And Gene was the greatest straight man who ever lived. He would ask you the questions and would set it up for you. He was wonderful. And I think the relaxation of the atmosphere." And, does she get residuals from the show, which airs several times a day around the country? "Not a goddamn penny!" she laughed.

...

I posed one final question to the outgoing performer with the distinctive gravelly tones: When people hear your name, what would you like them to think? Her answer: "I would like them to think that I gave them pleasure and joy."

You always did, Brett!!

Up late finishing some work (oh, am I swamped!!) and just checked my CE listserv messages. They pointed me to this nifty HR World article on 101 reasons why freelancers do it better!

Totally true: #6, 8, 36, 41, 55, 73, 74, 86, 89, 98

I wish!!: #21, 56, 68, 76, 100

And who really would want #18???

This is the absolute best way to ingest 630 calories. It is taking all my willpower not to run off and get a caramel MooLatté right now!! Oh mama. ...

Listening to the iPod and "All Good People" comes on, with the classic 70s line "Send an instant karma to me," and I suddenly remember that L's brother used to visit us at college and we would spend hours listening to our turntable, and when this song came on he would always sing "Send an instant coffee to me," and we all laughed. He had some great substitute lines. (At least, I thought that was one!) Ah, college memories. ...

Yes, it is the start of the football season, but I do feel sad about not having a fantasy team. *sniff* Maybe next year.

On a very different note, before our fine game of Mystery of the Abbey last night, Schizo pulled up the Tuscan milk pages on Amazon and showed me the amazingly creative "review" posting going on there. Wow. First, I didn't even know Amazon sold milk. (I love that "customers who bought this" also bought bananas and Wonder Bread!) Second, some of those reviews are classic. I love the poetry too! So many things on the net, so little time. ...

Editing a publication on Maslow today, and I really appreciate these self-actualizing steps:

1. See life as a series of choices. “Making the growth choice rather than the fear choice a dozen times a day is to move a dozen times a day to self-actualization.”
2. Be honest with yourself, take responsibility, be fair, and be true to one’s inner voice: "What tastes good to you? What do you believe is right?”
3. Have “something to admire, to sacrifice [yourself for], to surrender to, to die for.”
4. Be open to the eternal, the divine, the noble, the sacred, and the poetic.

I have hired an assistant. My efforts to teach him how to scan simple documents have been fruitless. I often find him napping during work hours. He has a habit of using my light as a sunlamp. Despite his attempts to appease by bringing me chewed-up stuffed mice, I will probably have to let him go.

Been corresponding with my friend, the great Hyperion author MaryAnn. She told me AGAIN to get going with my writing. It's good to have an author friend who will nip you in the ass every time you write to her. :)

Found this neat site while I was looking around the net. All those thumbnails and descriptions of lit mags make me yearn to send out work again. That and Rachel's news that her chapbook is being published. Damn, I miss poetry. Maybe this Sunday I'll send out some poems ...

**damn** Just remembered I'll be reading for Don in October. Yikes. Guess I should be writing instead of submitting!!!

With this unofficial start of "September," and taking in the back-to-school sense of the change of season, I'm now officially a full-time freelancer. Although I still will check the want ads and consider office jobs that might suit, I'm going full-bore into the freelance world. Scary, yes, but exciting. I'm signing up for an editing class that should grow my skill set. I just finished a project for a new client, and I hope they will contact me again. I have work to do. I have the sun and a nice breeze. I have WFUV on the radio. I feel pretty good.

The plan: Blog more about the freelance life, the editing, the writing, the work. Add posts and links about writing, editing, publishing. Enhance with photos. Get back to the gym. Eat better. Write on my romance novel EVERY DAY.

Let's see how it goes.

Very relaxed after a week at the shore. But here's a tip: If your spouse offers to rub your back with suntan lotion, make sure that your WHOLE back is covered!! *ouchy*