I got a call today from a woman who runs continuing education at the community college in my part of town, wanting me to run a proofreading workshop that she said she "had enough students enrolled in." It's next freakin' week. I mean, what the hell -- how do you schedule a course without knowing you have an instructor? And it's at 9 am, which is just...not my time of day. It would also mean cutting down my six hour course that I do at the UW to three hours, which...I'm not entirely sure how to do. As it is, I don't really have enough time to get in depth with proofreading, at least, enough that I think people can come out of it knowing what they're doing. But I guess everyone enrolled works for King County, I'm just not sure what kind of proofreading information they're looking for.
Lately I've been proofreading behind a lot of copyeditors who don't know what they're doing. I never know what to say to the people who hire me; I usually just suck it up and repeat the copyeditor's mantra: It's not my book, it's not my book. But it's frustrating. I was telling someone recently about this, that I saw the word staunch used to mean stanch, a fine distinction that not many writers know, and I do not necessarily expect a writer to be smart enough to know the difference, but I damn sure expect the fucking copyeditor to know it. So many of the people I've read behind come out of the UW's certificate program, and it's really clear to me that they remembered stuff like style sheets and whatnot, tools of the trade, but they never learned the most important lesson, which is to strive to know as much about words and usage as you can, and always be learning more. You can't just rest on your reading experience; you have to keep current and open-minded about what's out there.
And I know that people interested in proofreading don't know enough about the basics of type and formatting; sure, they might be able to spot typos, but it's so much more than that. I'm not sure how much I can effectively communicate in three hours. Still, I'm going to go talk to her on Thursday and we'll probably also talk about creating a real workshop of some length to teach it. But geez, one week. I don't know how I'm gonna do this.
I'm behind again on my recs posts, but my rec I wanted to do yesterday is for Burn Notice. I'm always surprised that this qualifies for Yuletide, because it doesn't seem like that small a fandom to me. But I was happy to find this this year; it's a casefic with the voiceover comments like Michael makes in the show, and just dead on voices, especially that commentary. Fiona gets to do splodey stuff, and Sam and Jesse are involved, so it's like old home week, you know?
Living Well (9656 words) by LithiumDoll
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Burn Notice
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fiona Glenanne/Michael Westen
Characters: Michael Westen, Fiona Glenanne, Sam Axe, Jesse Porter, Charlie Westen, Barry Burkowski
Additional Tags: Post-Canon
Summary:
Lately I've been proofreading behind a lot of copyeditors who don't know what they're doing. I never know what to say to the people who hire me; I usually just suck it up and repeat the copyeditor's mantra: It's not my book, it's not my book. But it's frustrating. I was telling someone recently about this, that I saw the word staunch used to mean stanch, a fine distinction that not many writers know, and I do not necessarily expect a writer to be smart enough to know the difference, but I damn sure expect the fucking copyeditor to know it. So many of the people I've read behind come out of the UW's certificate program, and it's really clear to me that they remembered stuff like style sheets and whatnot, tools of the trade, but they never learned the most important lesson, which is to strive to know as much about words and usage as you can, and always be learning more. You can't just rest on your reading experience; you have to keep current and open-minded about what's out there.
And I know that people interested in proofreading don't know enough about the basics of type and formatting; sure, they might be able to spot typos, but it's so much more than that. I'm not sure how much I can effectively communicate in three hours. Still, I'm going to go talk to her on Thursday and we'll probably also talk about creating a real workshop of some length to teach it. But geez, one week. I don't know how I'm gonna do this.
I'm behind again on my recs posts, but my rec I wanted to do yesterday is for Burn Notice. I'm always surprised that this qualifies for Yuletide, because it doesn't seem like that small a fandom to me. But I was happy to find this this year; it's a casefic with the voiceover comments like Michael makes in the show, and just dead on voices, especially that commentary. Fiona gets to do splodey stuff, and Sam and Jesse are involved, so it's like old home week, you know?
Living Well (9656 words) by LithiumDoll
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Burn Notice
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fiona Glenanne/Michael Westen
Characters: Michael Westen, Fiona Glenanne, Sam Axe, Jesse Porter, Charlie Westen, Barry Burkowski
Additional Tags: Post-Canon
Summary:
As a rule, spies don’t have a lot of time for platitudes. Something that applies to the man in the street isn’t usually as relevant to the man hanging a hundred feet above the street – especially if the rope is fraying.
Good things come to those who wait, for example. Or, it’s the journey, not the destination.