My Tragedy of Errors

If only it was this easy...
Image by Salvatore Vuono

I was so disappointed in myself recently.

I was looking over my website and seeing what needed to be updated and what needed to be changed and deciding whether to add anything when I came across a HUGE error.  While that might not be a big deal to some, for someone who edits for a living, having a glaring spelling error splashed across the page is not exactly a great advertisement, y'know?

I thought back on every time I had laughed at a flyer advertising "proffesional proofreading" and winced.  Bad karma, indeed.  I quickly fixed the error, but I wonder how much damage has been done?  How many times has someone considered me for the job, then seen my website and that horrible mistake and laughed at me?  Maybe posted my error on some social network for others to see and laugh at?  Ugh.

I have a couple excuses, of course.  One, I can't work on the website in Google Chrome (my preferred browser).  One of the many excellent features of Google Chrome is that it has a spell-check function.  It helps me catch dumb errors that I make before they go out to the world and embarrass me.  (See how I spelled "embarrass" right?  Yeah, thanks Google Chrome.)  Currently there's a red squiggly line under my misspelling of professional up there.  It's just taunting me.

My second excuse is that it's just really hard to edit your own stuff.  I think that's the worst part.  I would have caught that error in someone else's work.  But because it was my own work (and we all know editors are infallible), I completely missed it.  I didn't check it as carefully as I would have checked something I was being paid to check.  Or even something I was volunteering to check.  I guess that isn't really an excuse.  It's just what happened.

I fixed the error.  I'll have to go through the whole thing again with a fine tooth comb, looking for anything else that might have slipped past me.  Maybe I can pretend someone else wrote it.  Or put my pride aside and ask  someone else to look at it and find errors I've missed.

Oh well.

When have you been "caught with your pants down" (so to speak)?

Oh yeah, and I'm an editor too!

Editing = zen
Photo by ningmilo

When it comes to this blog, writing tends to get a lot more love from me.  Part of the reason for that is because I don't spend lots of time going over each post with a fine-tooth comb, looking for errors.  It's fairly embarrassing to have your errors pointed out to you in a post that's supposed to be about how to avoid errors.  It's a bit more acceptable to have errors pointed out in a post about writing because hey!  I have an editor to take care of that!

Right?

Editing my own work can sometimes be an exercise in frustration.  It's so easy to miss our own errors, isn't it?  When I worked in pharmacy, we had whole staff meetings devoted to this concept.  We see what we expect to see.  It's also why you always want your pharmacy to have someone else double-checking every order that goes through.  While a misplaced apostrophe just looks ugly in a written piece, a misplaced decimal point on a prescription can kill.

On the other hand, editing someone else's work is, to me, a game.  It's fun.  Each little error I find is a small victory.  Yes, I'm one of those people who gets a thrill out of word searches.  I adore logic puzzles.  Portal 2 is probably my favorite video game.  Solving puzzles is fun, and fresh copy, riddled with errors, is a puzzle just waiting to be solved.

When I initially got into the writing/editing game, I thought I was going to be focusing on editing.  My question was, after all, "How do I get paid to read?"  I found a great volunteer gig editing for a nonprofit news site.  My year there has almost come to an end, but I plan to stand on.  Why?  It's fun!  And I'm good at it.  I fill up my proofing form nearly every time, and I find far more errors than the other editors.

I've edited articles for other people, and I want very much to start landing some bigger gigs.  I'm waiting to hear back on the pharmacy technician certification position, but I really hope that comes through.  As fun as writing is, I sometimes find myself stressed out by it.  Editing is a relaxing sort of zen activity for me.  I'd like to do more.

It's a Matter of Degree

How badly do I really need that piece of paper?
Photo by scottchan

I don't have a college degree.  Not even an Associates (although I have enough credits for two).  For whatever reason, life has always gotten in the way and I've just never managed to pull together the right combination of credits at the right school in order to grab that piece of paper.  I do have a pharmacy technician certificate from a vocational-technical school, but that's generally not something that impresses people in the writing fields (more on this in a bit).

So what's the deal with that?  Why not just bite the bullet and get the stupid piece of paper?  I looked into it about a year ago to see what I needed.  Turns out it's not much.  I have to retake math (sigh) and I need P.E. credits (you're kidding, right?).  Unfortunately, they both have to be taken at the school where the majority of my credits are, which is now about 45 minutes away.  And apparently P.E. isn't something you can take online.

My budget and schedule simply doesn't allow me to go back to school, at least not that school.  I still want to finish that technical writing certification program and hopefully I'll have the opportunity soon.  So what does all of this have to do with writing?

When I'm applying for freelance writing and editing positions online, so many of them want the candidates to have a Bachelors in English.  Sometimes they don't even care what you have a Bachelors in, so long as you have a Bachelors (which is frankly kind of ridiculous, since I've known plenty of people with a PhD. who can't spell or punctuate their way out of a paper bag).  I've always been skittish around these, and backed away.

I'm generally pretty confident in my skills.  I think that writing and editing is something you don't necessarily have to have a fancy piece of paper for. Either you can do it, or you can't.  As strange as it is to think about, it's kind of like auto repair.  Are you going to take your car to a mechanic who has a framed piece of paper on the wall or are you going to take it someone who can get the job done?  And if your mechanic can get the job done, does it matter whether those skills were learned at a tech school or by hands-on tinkering and discussing the craft with other mechanics who love their jobs and want to pass on knowledge?

A while back I posed the question to Anne Wayman at Aboutfreelancewriting.com, who has been in this business for a while and has considerably more experience than me.  She was kind enough to respond, indicating that she doesn't have a degree either, and that fact hasn't gotten in her way.  In a way, her response gave me "permission" to go ahead and give these openings a shot after all.

Shortly after this conversation, I ran across a request for freelance technical editors to edit pharmacy technician certification exams.  In their ad, they required a Bachelors.  I promptly responded back and, without mentioning education whatsoever, told them that I had worked in the field for nearly 10 years.  Yesterday, I heard back from them.  They sent me a short sample exam to edit and fact check.  After all, what they really want, more than a Bachelors, is someone who can do the work.

Who would have thought a pharmacy technician certification would have come in handy in this line of work?

My e-Publishing Quandary

There's a difference, whether we like it or not.

Photo by Maggie Smith

I go back and forth a bit on e-publishing.  On the one hand, it feels like a way to cheat yourself into a status you haven't really "earned," but on the other, it's a way to quickly get your voice out there when it's needed.

My biggest problem with e-publishing is that the channels are quickly becoming clogged with crap.  Just like anywhere else online, the challenge lies with the potential reader to separate the diamond out of the piles and piles of coal.  People who clearly will never could be published anywhere else can just publish themselves, maybe make a few bucks as their loyal friends and family purchase a copy out of the kindness of their hearts, and then the "book" just sits there forever, forgotten.

And it's mildly offensive to me to have someone claim that they are a published author when they just paid a fee to have their writing listed on a website.  To use the same word to describe someone who went through that minimal process as is used to describe someone who went through the trouble of querying agents and publishers and finally had their book accepted, went through numerous edits, and so on and so forth is, in my opinion, cheating.

I have written a novel.  I am not a published author.  Even if I decided to self-publish, I would never feel right calling myself a published novelist. I would know the truth.  I will be a published writer come March when the magazine featuring my article comes out, and I'm excited by that.  But all the web content in the world that I posted myself does not make me a published author currently.  Perhaps we need a new word.  We all know what a "blogger" is.  What can we call someone who writes and exclusively self-publishes?

Publication gives a piece of work a legitimacy and an authenticity.  It was accepted and deemed "good enough" by someone in the know. When you are the one to authenticate your own work, there's a distinct difference. It's kind of like awarding yourself first place in a contest.

So how do I figure that e-publishing has its place?  Well, because it does.  Sometimes you have a controversial topic and no legitimate publisher would touch it with a 10-foot pole.  Sometimes you want to get your work out quickly and traditional publishing would delay your work reaching its intended audience for a year or more.  Sometimes you want to spread the word about something important and don't want people to have to pay a fortune for it.  Sometimes you just don't want to go through all the frigging hassle.

This week has been a strange one.  I've seen e-publishing used as a shortcut and also decided how I'm going to use it for myself.  Normally I would be participating in NaNoWriMo right now. I'm not going to be working on that this year... well, sort of.  I'm doing my own modified version.  I have something very important to say, and I want to make sure I can say it on my own terms, as quickly as possible to as many people as I can, hopefully by the end of the year.

We'll see how it pans out.  I can promise you this, though:  When my book is for sale, I will not be referring to myself as a published author.  I will refer to myself as "the author of _________ available for sale at Amazon.com."  See the difference?  I will not claim an honor I have not earned.

On Being a "Good Reader"

Books.  The nectar of life.

Photo by:  Surachai

When thinking about the skills needed to be a writer, what normally comes to mind?  Chances are it's a few of the following:

-- A strong vocabulary
-- An intimate knowledge of commas
-- Knowing where the darn apostrophes go
-- Understanding the difference between "they're/their/there"
-- A wild imagination

I would argue that one of the best skills a writer could have is being a good reader.

What does this mean?  What makes a good reader?  Does it mean you could pass the "reading for context" test you were given in the second grade?  Does it mean you were consistently placed in a higher reading level than your actual grade?  Does it mean you slogged successfully through War and Peace before graduating high school (and actually understood at least half of it)?

Maybe.  Although I admit that I still have not read War and Peace and, frankly, have no desire to whatsoever.

Here's what I think it means to be a good reader:

-- You love books and would rather be reading than doing anything else.
-- At any given time you have a book somewhere about your person, "just in case."
-- You get so involved in a story that you stay up until at least 2 am, just to see what happens.
-- You love books the same way you love people.
-- You spend hours wandering in a bookstore.
-- You get involved in conversations and arguments about characters in stories, and feel personally invested in the outcome.

So what does this have to do with writing?

Family legend has it that I was taught to read at three years old by my grandmother.  By the first grade I was reading chapter books by Beverly Cleary.  I read "Animal Farm" in the fourth grade (and understood it).  At fifth grade I was tested and found to have a "fourteenth grade" reading level (i.e. college level).  I read anything you put in front of me (almost), both fiction and nonfiction.

From the very beginning, I was surrounding myself with language.  I learned quickly all the ways it can be manipulated, understood instinctively the difference between an adverb and an adjective, got a feel for the rhythm of punctuation.

When I'm writing, I'm just interested in getting the information out and on the page.  But when I edit, I become the reader.  I read the work out loud, to get the feel of it.  And I can "hear" whether it's working or not.  Sentences "sound" awkward.  Commas "feel" misplaced.

You can't teach this in school.  Studying nouns, verbs, transitional phrases, modifiers, participles...  it doesn't help you "feel" the language.  Even if you are writing about something as "dry" as heart attack symptoms.  Do it right, and your reader cares.  And as writers, we are all about the readers.  Right?  Want to be a better writer?  READ.