In the middle of a manuscript~

Yep, that’s exactly where I am. My first copyediting job arrived via Priority Mail this past Friday on a flash drive—a four-hundred-eighty-nine-page novel about the very controversial subject of medical marijuana. Wow!

I have to say, I am thoroughly enjoying not only the book, but also the process. It is taking longer than I expected though. For that matter, it is taking longer than the publisher thought too, but fortunately he is willing to be part of the learning process. The problem is, I am not sure how much is the learning process, and how much is just the way my brain works. I am afraid if I went any faster, I would miss something important. There is a lot to check.

For instance, do you know when to use who and whom? Is it all right to use the word alright? How about when to say less and when to say fewer, and what about the difference between which and that? Is it twenty eight or twenty-eight? This is just a miniscule sample of the things I have to think about.

Don’t get me wrong, as I said, I love it. I just hope I can do a good job within a reasonable number of hours.

By the way, I am getting quite an education on how to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes! ☺

The beginning of a dream~

It is late – I need to get to bed, but I want to quickly talk about the events of the past week – actually, one very specific event. Hmmm, where to start? I guess an explanation is in order, so here goes.

As much as I am certain my readers will occasionally find an error in my blog, I am pretty good at spelling and grammar. I find all sorts of errors in the written word just about everywhere. (Fellow bloggers, do not fear—I will not analyze your work—at least not out loud.) I just can't help it. I don't have to try to find errors; they just find me. I see them on signs, menus and websites, and in books, magazines and newspapers.

I love to read, and this has been true since I was around eight or nine years old. As a child, my nose was in a book every chance I got. One Christmas when I was about 13 or 14, my main gift was the entire set of Trixie Belden books, which at the time, numbered 15. I wouldn't have been happier with a trip to Disneyland! I didn't even come up for air for the next week. Although I don't actually remember how long it took me to read them, I can almost certainly guarantee that I finished them before I had to go back to school after New Year's Day. I have always been a fast reader, and as my family can attest, once a book draws me into its magic, it practically takes a bomb to get my attention.

Fast-forward many, many years ... part of our plan on this fulltime RVing adventure was that I would supplement our income by finding work as a proofreader. Before we left California, I signed up for an online writing and proofreading course. The wealth of information I gleaned from that course was this ... it taught me where to find the information I would need in order to be a proofreader and or copyeditor. It also taught me that there is much more to proofreading than simply grammar and spelling.  Finding a job was harder than I anticipated, and up to this point, I had no success whatsoever.

That has now changed. A couple of weeks ago I read a book that I simply loved, and I e-mailed the author to tell him "thanks" for such a great story. Before e-mailing him though, I looked him up on the Internet and found that not only is he an author, but he has a small publishing company as well. On top of that, he is a well-known name in the publishing industry. In my e-mail, I told him of my desire to get into proofreading and asked him for suggestions.

Unbelievably, he answered my e-mail, thanked me for my kind remarks about his amazing book, and asked if I would do a sample edit for him. Ummm, let me think about that ... would I want to do a sample edit for a famous author and publisher ... which just might get me into the very career I have wanted for years? That's a tough one ... hmmm ... OF COURSE!

Well, the long and short of it is, I did the sample edit, he was very happy with what I did, and now I am just waiting to receive a full-length manuscript for editing! Can I just say that I am extremely excited about this?? On top of that, I will be "copyediting" rather than simply "proofreading." Proofreading is a very important job and I think I would enjoy that too, but I am thrilled with the prospect of being part of the process a bit earlier in the sequence of events. Proofreading, as I understand it, is the very last thing that happens in the life of a book before actually being published. Copyediting happens toward the beginning of the process and is much more involved.

If this turns out to be something I can do on a regular basis, it will help us out in so many ways. It will help our finances sure, but the most significant thing is that it will give me some way to contribute to our finances that won't require me to hear anything. Most of you know that I am moderately hard of hearing. I am painfully aware that my days are numbered for being able to work in a campground office, taking reservations over the phone and registering incoming campers. At this point, I can still do that successfully, but I have to admit that it is exhausting. No one that does not have to strain to understand what is being said all the time can comprehend how tiring it is. I have learned not to be embarrassed to have to ask people to repeat what they say, but I do understand that it is annoying for them. I can't expect to continue to work in a customer service industry when it gets even more difficult to understand the customers than it already is. This has been something I have been concerned about, and I am very thankful to the Lord for providing this opportunity. Now I just need to do a great job so that I can continue.