Sunday, May 30, 2010

Good prices, bad copy writers

Subject line of email from Best Buy: "New reducing pricing on a variety of laptops"

It would appear that pricing is on a diet.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Everything you always wanted to know about being an editor, but were afraid to ask

This email exchange with my managing editor pretty much sums it all up:

ME to me: I meant to mention to you that Yada Yada would like to include the extra information (and credit you) that you added as an "FYI" to him in note 83 of chapter 10 of Blah Blah Blah (about the whatchamacallit being used in Ringydingy in the 1970s). Is this OK with you?

Me to ME: That credit belongs to Whats Hisname.

Whats Hisname, an editorial consultant who occasionally eyeballs manuscripts, added one sentence to the book. I made well over a thousand edits, many of them substantive.

I will receive no credit or thanks of any kind from the author (nor will the layout person who transforms the Word docs into a publishable PDF file in InDesign), and certainly no mention in the book's Acknowledgments section. That little perk always goes to the acquisitions editor who brought the manuscript in and then, with virtually no review, turned it over to Editorial. Every time I read that section of a manuscript and see that acknowledgment, I want to scream.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

I should contact the American Psychiatric Association to suggest they add to their DSM a disorder that I've experienced. Anecdotal evidence indicates this disorder is widespread.

The disorder presents itself when I'm working on an especially bad manuscript. When it rears its head, I can edit chapters only in very small segments.

The new entry in the DSM would begin, "WTDATDD: Willing-to-devote-attention-to deficit disorder . . . "

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Dashed Hope

I started editing my current book project about three weeks ago.

In all that time, I had seen nothing but assure/assured mistakenly used for ensure/ensured.

But I remained hopeful.

Today, finally, I came across not only ensure but also ensuring.

Sadly, deletion of each incorrect r ensued.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Life Editing Imitates Art

Often, far too often, editing can drive you a little nuts—and every once in a while, totally batshit crazy!

There are, quite literally, hundreds of ways that this profession can be hazardous to your mental health. Count me among the many editors who would place authors, for what they do (sins of commission) and/or don't do (sins of omission), squarely at the top of the list. Next on the list would be a very distant second indeed.

An editor friend made reference to the classic 1944 film "Gaslight" to describe his current editing project. This is probably the best metaphor I've ever heard for what editing can, on those TBC occasions, feel like.


Here is what "Paula" (Ingrid Bergman) says to her husband, "Gregory" (Charles Boyer) after he gets busted. It perfectly mirrors what many editors feel with regard to some of our authors:

"If I were not mad, I could have helped you. Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad, I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart, without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you go with glory in my heart!"

Close but no cigar

I just edited an article on how to hang flowering plants.

According to the writer, to do so you'll need close pins.

Ursa Major Oops

Spotted in a manuscript this morning: "bear-bones information."

Perhaps the author was fantasizing.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Mother Russia would not be amused.

One of her girls, presumably via a Russian dating spam site, emailed the following to me: "I am lobokibng faor a date."

Good luck and do svidanya, Svetlana.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Today's Fantasy

Dear Stupid, Lazy Sonofabitch Author:

In your nearly 700 notes (which you submitted as footnotes rather than endnotes per our submission guidelines), you failed to enclose within quotation marks a single report title.

There must be close to a hundred of them. In addition, you failed to italicize perhaps twenty or so book titles.

Also, you evidently couldn't make up your addled brain regarding the military vs. civilian treatment of how to structure a specific date.

Finally, your clearly schizoid approach to hyphenation and capitalization would seem to indicate an immediate need for treatment.

In closing, I can only say that all of the above, and so much more, perfectly represents the focus of your book: the fight against terrorism. For this editorial effort, I am the good guy and you are the terrorist.

Forever disrespectfully yours,

I love working at home.

But there is the occasional day when I miss the hustle and bustle of being out there among the worker bees.

This Friday, National Bike to Work Day, will be one such day.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

A series in search of commas


That makes my heart race, my lungs constrict, and my blood pressure rise.

Let's just say that the Institute makes full use of the aserial comma, shall we?

Friday, May 14, 2010

The Abyss

My current author's work represents a quantum leap downward into the stylistic netherworld, to depths even my worst writers to date don't even know exist.

He is, quite literally, an explorer and worthy of a Guinness World Record.

He has ignored with the wild abandon known only to the most adventurous among humankind, consistency in every possible way it can applied to a written work.

I am, for this project, not an editor, but a sanitary engineer.

The Writing Minefield

I just came across the phrase "anti-personal explosives" in the manuscript I'm editing.

And it's in chapter 4, with six remaining. I wonder what other dangers lie ahead.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

One bad turn deserves another.

When I edit a manuscript, I normally turn off Track Changes when I do HTML-coding and formatting, and clean up the author's junk that is not related to content. I do this as a favor of sorts to make the author's review easier.

Those days are over. The manuscript I'm working on never should have been accepted in its current form, which is filled with more violations of submission guidelines than almost any I've seen.

Track Changes has been on from the moment I started this project and will never be turned off.

I'm going to fill this author's (and any of his kind in the future) world with every single change I make. His right margins will runneth over with the evidence of how much I had to do to bring his work to publication.

Professional writing as on-the-job training

The company for which I do online article editing recently introduced an "instant reject" feature for articles that meet certain reject criteria. "Instant reject" is not exactly instant, as the copy editors must first obtain an OK from our team lead.

I recently sent my lead a request to approve an instant reject (based on lack of basic composition skills) of an article containing the following:

"Microsoft first introduced the breakthrough XENIX-based messaging system but in 1993 a few transfer to the early versions of Exchange Servers has slowly started. By January 1995 over 500 users ran the foremost, Exchange Server Beta 1. As it has proven to be a better alternative and provided with its precise acumen, some 30,000 users has migrated to it at the end of 1996. . . . Spam and viruses are usually tied up on messages that are abundant in the internet, just the thought of a having these in your system is inadmissible. . . . Finding and fixing problems are quickly responded, . . . It gives off easy administration at no higher cost which in return, makes a good performance for everyone in the company."

My team lead denied my request. She said the article is "not incomprehensible" and that I should return the article to the writer with a rewrite request that points out some errors and makes specific suggestions.

In my opinion, "not incomprehensible" is not a standard we should even consider, and it should be trumped by the criterion "content demonstrates lack of basic composition skills."

The terms "race to the bottom" and "lowest common denominator" come to mind.

I signed on to be a copy editor, not a writing instructor.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Editing Heaven

Some software developer/programmer could make millions by developing a program that could simultaneously run a global search and replace through multiple Word files.

Feeling wishful this morning.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Occupational Hazard

I have several fellow editors―my kindred spirits―with whom I share my editing experiences. They do the same, and some days seem to be primarily comprised of a nonstop flow of emails among us.

Many of our messages deal with the trivia and esoterica of editing style and such. But most of those emails reflect our reactions to what we're working on and the negative emotions (for example, disbelief, anger, frustration, disappointment) resulting from our work.

This image should be part of our email signatures:

My Own Private Guantánamo

When an author submits a manuscript to a publisher, he is supposed to adhere to the publisher's submission guidelines.

For example, one area of those guidelines pertains to chapter notes. My publisher requests that all chapter notes be compiled in a separate file (which is placed at the end of the book), and thus the number signals in the text would not link directly to their respective notes. (Linking means that, during the editing process, when you place your cursor over the number, the note text pops up. This enables the editor to see if the note matches the respective text and can only work if there are footnotes.)

The manuscript I'm working on has footnotes and, therefore, linked numbers in the text. I can only guess why the acquisition editor in this case accepted the manuscript as submitted, in blatant violation of the guidelines. Most likely, it is related to the intense pressure that traditional publishers (and acquisition editors) are under as they compete with the emerging digital publishing industry.

What I do know, however, is that the mechanics involved (and the time required) to transform more than 600 footnotes with linked numbers into a new file, and replace linked numbers in the text with unlinked numbers are sheer editorial hell. I will spare you the details.

Today will be devoted to completing that task. What comes to mind is how we used to blast rock music as part of PsyOps torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and military prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Uh oh, here comes the warden, and I think he's about to crank it up.

Monday, May 10, 2010

"Don't close the door, Mommy."

In the manuscript I just started to edit, "Ibid., 48"―missing the period at the end—is a typical end note. And there are nearly 700 of them.

Perhaps the author has abandonment or closure issues.

Friday, May 7, 2010

If I ruled the world . . .

There would be much greater use of acronyms without the initial spelling out. After all, don't we pretty much know, for example, what NATO, CIA, FBI, and the UN stand for.

First on my Official List of Acronyms would be AQ. In a quick scan of a new editing project, I have already seen: al Qaeda, Al Qaeda, al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda, al Qaida, Al Qaida, al-Qaida, and Al-Qaida.

In case you're wondering, the book was written by one author, not a group of them.

I shall call him Squiggly Piggy.

As you know, one use of brackets ("[xx]") is to insert an editorial comment of some kind within quoted material.

The author of the manuscript which I just started to edit, consistently uses squiggly brackets ("{xx}") instead. I can't recall ever seeing squigglies outside of computer programming language or advanced mathematical formulas.

Squigglies have no place in civilized society.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Caveat emptor scriptor

The following is from an article I edited on calculating return on investment in real estate:

"In the example, $80,000 divided by $60,000, which equals $20,000."

This sentence fragment + horrible math = credence to those who believe writers can't edit their own work.

Serial Killer

Some say that deep within each of us lies a potential killer who could be released given the right set of circumstances.

Upon waking this morning, I found tangible evidence of that on the writing pad I keep next to my bed. Evidently I had done some automatic writing during the night.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Bad blurb from a writer's bio

"Elvira is a professional writer with more than 5-years of experience."

In her case, perhaps the sixth year will be a charm.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Editor Franklin D. Roosevelt: Who knew!

Researcher Finds Roots of FDR’s “Day of Infamy” Speech

WASHINGTON (Rhoiders) — The National Archives and Records Administration announced today a major find related to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s historic speech following the 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor.

Senior Researcher Monika Kharlamov was reviewing documents related to FDR’s work history in the days before he entered politics. One of his positions was as a senior freelance editor for the now-defunct Hastings Publishers, which was headquartered near FDR’s home in Hyde Park, New York.

Kharlamov told Rhoiders, “When I came across this letter from the president to presumably his supervisor at Hastings, I could easily understand, having been an editor myself, why FDR would draw upon the emotions expressed in this letter when he addressed the nation following the Pearl Harbor attack.”

The letter appears here in its entirety.

“Yesterday, September 23rd, 1909—a date which will live in infamy—my mailbox was suddenly and deliberately attacked by what appears likely to turn out to be the worst manuscript I was ever asked to edit.

“I was at peace with that mailbox and was still in conversation with my mailman and my publisher, and was looking toward the maintenance of peace with both of them.

“Indeed, three hours after the mailman commenced attacking my mailbox, the author of the manuscript delivered to my publisher a formal request to verify my receipt of said manuscript. And while this request stated that it seemed useless for the author to initiate any negotiations with me at that time, it contained no threat or hint of the attack that lurked within the manuscript.

“It will be recorded that the distance of my mailbox from the author’s home makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the author had deliberately sought to deceive the acquisition editor and my publisher by his false statements and expressions of certitude regarding the quality of his submitted work.

“The attack on my mailbox has caused severe damage to this editor’s defenses. I regret to tell you that very many hundreds of my hours will probably be wasted. In addition, within the past 24 hours this very same author has reportedly attacked other publishers from coast to coast.

“The author has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the country. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. This editor, and no doubt others, have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very health and sanity of our profession.

“As chairman of the American Society of Editors, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole profession remember the character of the onslaught against us.

“No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the ASE in its righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

“I believe that I interpret the will of the ASE when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

“Bad writers with their hostile intent exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our association, its members, publishers, the American reading public, and our individual and collective interests are in grave danger.

“With confidence in our membership, with the unbounding determination of our publishers, we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.

“I ask that the ASE and its members’ publishing houses declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by this author, a state of war has existed between those in the editing profession and this author.”

A haiku to celebrate the end of a project

Editing’s Dark Secret
The manuscript sucks
Writer should keep his day job
Half-hearted edit