Copyediting: 2008+...

Tom Lehrer talks about people advertising what they've done... and as y'know, I too can do that. 8)

Back when I was starting out, I did more pro bono work. Not only because it is what TNH recommended to me, it was also that I had more free time in 2008.

I'd done nonfiction proofreading since 1989. I was anxious to do fiction next.

What I didn't know... was that inside of two years, I'd be proofreading and/or copyediting two nonfiction magazines, and two fiction 'zines. I started working on fiction novels barely four months after becoming the freelancer who proofread Locus.



On Horrors Beyond 2... I proofread:

• A. A. Attanasio's "Fractal Freaks" [gods, that was a hard one to work on!] 
• Michail Velichansky's "A Monster in the Lake"
• E. Sedia's "The Clockmaker's Daughter" -- this was extremely creepy. I don't mean in a good way (not for me at least); I can still remember how I tried to blot this out of my memory afterward, and I didn't succeed. It hit several buttons that have terrified me for years. WARNING: body horror.

Possibly I also had "5150" by Gene O'Neill in my queue, but I'm not sure. My copy's not currently available. :o

HB2 being a volunteer project, it didn't bother William so much if we couldn't finish them all.  It bothered me.  I know I did two completely, perhaps three, but I didn't have the time to do my entire set.  Meaning that I queried him about the Attanasio, and we didn't mesh in time.

It did teach me that time is finite, and when you're volunteering, often your time is the one thing you can only spare so much of.


Tidbit from March 2015:  Out of about 140-odd books published by Angry Robot... I copyedited 22.  How's that for something?  :D  When AR had a picture of their initial 50 books, I believe I'd done the c/e on nine (yes, 9!) of those.

=wistful=  AR gave me many great books to work on.