Rules Are Not Shoes: Finding the Fit - The Subversive Copy Editor Blog

Writers, copy editors, proofreaders, you have permission. Because we're informed by convention, we make editorial decisions with thrift. Not a blind application of the rules, our editorial decisions must fit; most of all, you must make them. With each piece, you run a course between the way people have read before and the way people can possibly read. While your editorial decisions will be likely always conventional, it's important to remember that they don't come from a book: They come from you, from a relationship with writing, from the objective of your project.

Let me cut short the editorial manifesto and simply re-post here, with a salute to Carol Fisher Saller for giving permission to writers, editors, and proofreaders who might have yet unrealized latitude. Thanks, Saller. I frequently turn to Chicago for my editorial starch and dairy. (Plus, the online edition is solid!)

Take the jump below to Saller's blog:

Rules Are Not Shoes: Finding the Fit - The Subversive Copy Editor Blog

China Childhood Memoir Published

A few months back, I was called in by independent publisher Jossie Auerbach for a proofread of her 91-year-old grandmother's memoir. Auerbach's dedicated a couple years toward the book's release, and I'm proud to share the announcement that it's now available!

"Nanny refers to it as 'my little book,' but it really is an amazing book, and my grandmother is an amazing woman, as is her story. Charming, insightful, and funny," Auerbach says. Indeed My Nanking Home: 1918-1937 is a great recounting of grandmother Nancy Thomson Waller's childhood in China. Waller brings us to the time in between the wars, to culturally exotic and politically shifting lands, with her family and extended family—school mates, coolie's, cooks and gardeners, and neighbor Pearl S. Buck.

Reminisce how big and small the world has always been with your copy of My Nanking Home. The memoir is available by phone, 607-264-3951; email, office.willowhillpublications@gmail.com; and on the Web, www.willowhillpublications.wordpress.com. Cost is $15 plus shipping and handling, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Pearl S. Buck Foundation.

Guidebook Boston Baby Published

Months ago I had fun working with the manuscript of this book. Now, Boston Baby: A Field Guide for Urban Parents is available. The thumbs of Boston-area moms and dads are sure to wear out the pages of this parenting survival guide. Boston Baby points new parents toward adventures right outside the door, sometimes indoors (hello, winter recreation). With chapters about area child care and public schools, the book also stands out as an essential resource. Congrats to Union Park Press and author and Boston's DailyCandy Kids editor Kim Foley MacKinnon.

Portfolio Adds

I've added recent copywriting work to my Mediabistro Freelance Marketplace portfolio.

Find my previews of recent Earshot Jazz Festival concerts on that portfolio page or click here. Also check out a keen profile of Mystic, Connecticut, for New England Condominium magazine.

BTW, heavy-handed copyeditor on that story? No team stands between the Connecticut Sun and that WNBA championship title. I mean no team: "Mohegan Sun even hosts the Women’s National Basketball Association team, The Connecticut Sun." If in doubt, leave that comma out, son. And, really, are they The Connecticut Sun or the Connecticut Sun?

Any restrictive clause or article capitalization stories to share? Yours, in comments.

Photo by Daniel Sheehan.

Need Copy Editors

Svelte evil bosses and lead dancers of the corporate world, you still need copy editors. You need us for our commitment to the four Cs plus our ability to improve office morale with impromptu music video.

Came across this music vid by Mediabistro blog Fishbowl LA. I've a similar experience mixing my passions, talents, and work. Though not laid off, I'm for hire.

Editorial Peeve: Trend, Real Data

At first I intended to post a simple rant, possibly an admonition, against a phrase I hear misused all the time. I deflated after a Google news search pulled the phrase up as early as 1894 and included about five million hits. About four million hits appear in this new millennium alone. The peak for the phrase comes in July 2009, about 3.5 million hits!

Why such a distinctive spike in data? I don't know, ask Malcolm Gladwell. Just a Google search can't be definitive. But hey, pull that data together with all the anecdotal tales of the phrasal offense, and we've got a case for petitioning the public speakers of the world to put a stop to this.

NPR copywriters, Obama speech writers, news reporters, just quit it. You've offended an otherwise cool-headed copyeditor. The next time you're writing or speaking about a wide range, it better be the Himalaya or some such, not just choices for fresh-baked pies. Sheesh.

Observe:
"Hey Jackson, what'dya want to do today?"
"Oh, I don't know, Skip. Boy, there sure is a wide range of great stuff to do."

Ludicrous, right? Leave your own, in comments.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, a variety will suffice. I don't think I want to make the effort to consider a wide variety all the time.

Business Card

I’m looking for ways to re-market my resume here in Seattle. It’s a little static in MS Word. I’ve used up my Acrobat trial, and I’m not ready to shell out the $450 to regain access, so the hip pdf resume will have to wait. Even if software’s a business expense, I’m looking for ways to earn and save, not spend.
Check it out, Google Docs to the rescue.



What do you think? Readers, in comments.

Chesapeake to Puget Sound

I left Boston fourteen days ago, and after an Independence Day weekend in Washington DC and on the bay's Middle River, I left Landenberg, PA. About thirty-five hundred miles later I'm in a SeaTac hotel with my travel partner, my dad, a budding journalist (thanks to satellite technology) .

We camped in state parks, national parks, and national forests; we ate at roadway diners and cooked up camp feasts with chance local ingredients; we left the van for some exercise (the van got a lot too) and brief encounters with the people and landscapes where we travelled. Anyone that has been on the road in America knows that praise amounts to understatement and awe can't capture enough.

This trip served as a bit of a vacation for me; mostly it's a move of my freelance biz (editorial and otherwise) and my life back to Seattle. Many thanks to my friends and coworkers in Boston and elsewhere.

I've adapted my dad's wireless updates from the last ten days on the road below:

Day 1


Schraepfer and I left PA at 10:30 Sun morn and made it just 25 miles south of Michigan, east of Toledo, OH, on Maumee Bay, which opens onto Lake Erie.

Day 2


Today we drove about 225 miles and stopped in Muskegon, MI, and had lunch with my 90 year young Uncle and his wife. He was in the process of digitally editing music on his PC (running XP and using Sound Forge to clean up the files, for you techies) and entertaining his wife's son and grandson. She prepared a great lunch, and we are on our way north to the Upper Peninsula to camp tonight.

Day 3


Traverse City -- cherry capital of the world -- happened to hit upon the National Cherry Fest today. Saw the Native American cultural heritage portion. Off to the Upper Peninsula.

Day 4


So, after the Day 3 pic of the festival in Traverse City, MI, we drove about 160 miles across to the Upper Peninsula and stayed on Lake Superior at Bay Furnace State Park in Christmas, MI.

Today we drove 450 miles across Wisconsin into central Minnesota to the headwaters of the Mississippi (you can step across it!). The real treat was meeting up with C and his girlfriend Erika who have been in Alaska and Canada. Basically the old story about two trains leaving stations, where do they meet? Bemidji, MN.

Day 5


Schraepfer and I traversed North Dakota after leaving central Minnesota today. We are in Theodore Roosevelt park on the Little Missouri not far from where Teddy came to hunt and cattle in 1880s. Simply beautiful hanging under the cottonwoods!

Day 6


Stellar day. Went mountain biking in the North Dakota badlands and grasslands. Schraepfer's maiden voyage (it was his idea) and amazing sites, animals (feral horses, bull who made us get off the road), weather, exercise.
Followed up by some brewskis and our first shower of the trip -- what could be better? Oh yeah, doing some laundry.

Day 7


Well, we left Medora, ND, (will definitely be going back) and crossed Montana to Glacier Nat. Park. Today was green grasslands, huge big sky, Native Am. res', and cool little towns and a big wind turbine farm (couple hundred).

But we stopped in Lewistown, MT, at a farmers market and chatted it up with two Hutterites (think Amish with a flair) and bought some great bread and chokecherry jam (Lewistown is capital of chokecherry).

Beautiful weather but it will probably get to freezing tonight.

Day 8


Hard to describe the majesty of the peaks and valleys in Glacier Park. Another beautiful day, with a nice hike up to (no) Fish Pond to try out Schraepfer's new fishin pole but the only things biting were skeeters and black flies. Otherwise every view is awesome here.

Day 9


Well, the pic sums up our drive, lots o' rain from western MT, thru Idaho and then beautiful skies in eastern WA. Vineyards and farms. Last full day tomorrow, no more country stations singing 'bout "gave up smokin, women and drinkin, worse 15 minutes of my life" or "honky tonk badongadonk" or "drinkin on sat., prayin on sun." etc.

Day 10


Another stellar day from eastern WA (big country, big vineyards and fields of fruit, etc.) into big mts (Cascades) thru tall Douglas fir and Pacific silver fir back on the grid.

Thanks for travelling with us.

Sports guide copyedited

The Die-Hard Sports Fan’s Guide to Boston: A Spectator’s Handbook by Christopher Klein, from Union Park Press, offers sports fans the first and only comprehensive guide to the range of sporting events on offer in and around the Greater Boston area. From minor- and major-league baseball, football, basketball, and hockey to soccer, golf, tennis, and college teams, Klein sets the city’s sports history against practical information for devoted Boston sports fans.

Get a copy at Amazon.com or at local bookstores. Turn to the guide to be in the know about New England sporting events all year. To learn more about the book, visit Union Park Press.

Also keep an eye on the Union Park Press website for upcoming events all summer long. Klein will be speaking about The Die-Hard Sports Fan’s Guide to Boston as well as Union Park Press’s inaugural book, Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands: A Guide to the City’s Hidden Shores, at a variety of venues in and around the Hub.

Know-it-alls, feel free to abuse my inbox with punctuation errata after you’ve bought the book and pored over every mark. Really though, an astounding comprehensive guide. Congrats to author Chris Klein.

Grammar: Not always high brow

Sergeant Anous, formally with the normal police, now with the Grammar Police, has a word with Timmy Blumpkin, contraction violator and reigning douchenozzle, then busts cheat sheet dealer.

Sergeant Faraday responds to a domestic grammar dispute.



I'd like to think I'm more judicious about the use of force. But I do keep fresh Duracells in my grammar tazer and holster full of pens. Lol Grammar Police. Gotta love your copy editor.