Hone Your Craft to Own Your Craft

Posted on by JannyS

The conversation went a little something like this:

“OMG, are you reading a dictionary right now?”

After glancing up and trying NOT to roll my eyes irretrievably into their sockets, “No, Hon, I’m actually reading a professional guide for editors to refresh my knowledge and see what’s new in the field.”

It was NOT, in fact, a dictionary. It was an editing style guide, thank you very much!

“So, like a dictionary, but worse?” Laughter and mocking conversation followed as the rest of the family got in on the joke.

“Har, har. You guys are hilarious.” I pushed my reading glasses back onto my nose and once more wielded my highlighter like the weapon it is.

The Importance of Staying Current

You know how our kids mock us when we say things like “groovy” or “psychedelic”? As writers, we spend a LOT of time focusing on speech patterns, slang, and even everyday activities of the younger generations. Why? It’s not because we enjoy watching exotic species in their natural environment. It’s because we need our writing to stay relevant—and, also, we don’t want to be mocked into a permanent room at Shady Acres just yet.

Writers today have many options. We’ve all seen the movies about hermits who decide to become lighthouse keepers on remote islands. They end up writing brilliant novels, and they never have human contact—except for that one captain who arrives in a rickety boat that crashes toward shore once per year with the basic supplies needed for survival. And who among us isn’t clamoring for that option?!

But—and this is just me going out on a limb—there are those writers who want to live an existence in modern society and write about current topics. And that means staying up to date with what is going on around them.

Collectors of Knowledge

We’re collectors and learners and hoarders of facts. And when you think about it, observing new trends, behaviors, and speech patterns are all ways of learning and collecting knowledge.

The intuitive and empathetic nature most creative people possess drives them to not only study and recall behaviors, but also try to understand how they fit into the context of the world surrounding them. All the human emotions and behaviors we learn about add to the worlds and stories we create.

But Why Study Grammar & Editing & Stuff?

The mechanics of our jobs—whether you’re a writer, an editor, a proofreader, or all of the above—are the supporting framework of the creativity we put out there. Think of the inner structure of a building, the weight-bearing support.

Is it all about grammar? Absolutely not. Is it about rule-breaking? Nope, not that either.

It’s about how everything works together to form a balance. It used to be all about grammar, but today I read style guides and grammar books to learn about updates and accepted uses.

THEN, I use my professional judgement, based on the text I’m currently writing or editing. True, there are still a few dusty, by-the-book rule followers who are likely growing apoplectic at reading this, but they are few and far between. Most writers recognize they’ll capture a larger and more invested audience if they “speak their language.”

Yeah, I’d Totally Read a Dictionary

When it comes down to it, I suppose I should apologize to my husband for being so appalled that he mocked me for nerding out while reading an editing guide…because it could have just as easily been a dictionary or a thesaurus. (#Guilty)

Why? I want my writing to be the best it can be. Likewise, I want my clients to get the very best work I can give them when I’m editing. That means they deserve the extra time I put in to stay abreast of current style guide updates and even the latest additions to Merriam-Webster.

P.S. Did you guys know that, as of 2021, “hard pass,” “@,” and “cancel culture” have officially been added to the dictionary? Don’t blink! Things change daily.

From Editor to Reader: How to Put Down the Red Pen and Read a Damned Book for Fun

Posted on by JannyS

Being an editor is great for so many reasons, but I’ll name just a few so we can all get back to writing and creating:

  • It’s nerdy. Cue eraser residue, chalk dust, and inspirational cat posters. As angsty as 6th grade was, there were still some pretty great moments—a lot of them in English class. While everyone else groaned about singing the preposition song, I annoyingly sang it AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY—for everyone who would listen. I eagerly diagramed and rewrote sentences and volunteered to recite poetry in front of the class. Others called in sick on ‘balcony day,’ but I perched myself atop my teacher’s rickety ladder and proceeded to Romeo & Juliet the hell out of a soliloquy. (Things like safety were of little consequence then. Now, you’d have a lawsuit on your hands before you could say ‘Dodgeball!’)
  • It’s methodical. Editors are a weird breed. (I probably don’t need to tell you that.) We’re writers, and we’re over-the-top creative, but we can also flip our analytical switch and focus solely on mechanics when necessary. The methodical nature of editing is quite relaxing and fulfilling. Maybe it’s the way all that red ink and those editing marks lend themselves to a feeling of accomplishment. An editor’s marks are a sign that an author’s work is nearing completion! After a long, hard road of research, drafts, rework, more drafts, and edits, a book finally takes shape—and it’s freaking amazing! It is worth all the hard work, sweat, and tears you put into it. Pretty great reason to love editing!
  • It’s nuanced. The little details of editing are especially appealing to grown-up geeks. Here’s why. Many of us would still be sitting in a musty university library somewhere researching the origins of the ampersand (originally the 27th letter of the alphabet, btw) if we didn’t need to make a living to survive. The great news is that, as editors, we sort of still get to do all that dank, musty research—except now we have laptops and Starbucks, both of which are way more en vogue than old-school card catalogs and micro-fiche.

Super-fun afternoon break idea: Choose a piece of writing and then decide as a group whether or not a specific pause in the writing is worthy of an em dash or if a comma will suffice! (SEEE, editors are FUN people, too!)

Hazards of the Job

If you’ve ever gone on vacation and attempted to NOT be an editor…

Hold on. I’m going to try to stop laughing before I finish that sentence. Starting again…

Editors don’t ever feel like they are on vacation; however, occasionally, they DO attempt to read books for fun. Weird, right? It’s sort of like explaining to kids that their teachers don’t actually live at the school. It usually goes something like this:

  • Editor arrives at beach with family and doles out 4 beach chairs, 2 totes full of everything needed in case of sudden apocalypse: water bottles, flip flops, hats, towels, sunglasses, water toys, shark repellant, snacks, kitchen sinks.
  • Trudges across sand, weighing option of continuing to struggle in flip flops vs. burning feet on boiling-lava-hot sand.
  • Plants chairs, towels, and umbrella in pristine location and shoos kids off to boogie board and avoid sharks.
  • Attaches sunglasses to face and pulls paperback novel purchased specifically for relaxing vacation reading out of beach bag.
  • Sinks into chair and opens to first chapter.
  • At exactly page 7, dog-ears page and works backward to see if protagonist’s name has been spelled consistently. Something seems off.
  • After verifying, returns to reading spot…only to discover accidental extra space before last sentence on page. Marks spot and digs in bag for pen.
  • Reminds self not to edit and ignores extra space.
  • Clears mind, checks on kids who are still safely playing, and flips to next chapter.
  • WHOA! Why is font size 2 pts. larger on this page? Unable to even more forward like this, closes eyes for a sunshine siesta.
  • Tries again later…only to encounter a typo and a factoid about a turtle that is really a tortoise.
  • Puts book down before heart failure sets in.

Ah, the Life of an Editor

If you haven’t yet been through the non-vacation vacation, don’t think you’ll avoid it forever. It will happen to you sometime in your editing career. You’ll sit down somewhere, yearning for unknown worlds and a blank mind—but instead you’ll end up getting a shitstorm of brain noise and the urge to mark all over things with a red pen. It’s unavoidable, so just remember it’s not your fault.

Every now and then, we have to remind ourselves that it all started with a story–and not with a whole bunch of grammar rules. Take a deep breath, order a margarita, sit back and have a good read. Take a vacation, dear editor, discover new worlds just for fun, and enjoy ALL. THE. VOICES.

Here’s What We Know

While vacay practically mandates at least one day of sandy, sunny, margarita-laden book reading with ZERO itinerary and an overload of cat naps, it’s sometimes hard to get our inner selves to cooperate. The pizza stain on page 87 of my new book is proof that I tried.

Before our latest trip, I delivered a mom mandate a little something like, “We’re all going on vacation, and we’re all GOING TO HAVE FUN.” I was determined to set the example.

But for the love of surf and turf, there were factors beyond my control! How was I supposed to kick back while staring at comma splices and run-on sentences? That’s no way to relax.

The Downtime Conundrum

Many people have an inner workaholic that refuses to clock out. For editors, it’s the constant flare-up of Sudden Onset Editor Syndrome that stops them in their tracks. (This should be listed on WebMD so we can research it while we’re up at 1:00 a.m. looking for new ways to kill off characters.) It’s very real and can be debilitating when it comes to reading material for enjoyment or informational purposes.

For example:

Sign at WalMart last weekend:

“All customer’s must wear masks.”

Me (after taking emergency hit off inhaler and tightening belt one notch):

“Honey, do you have a red pen?”

Normal people would be able to extract the necessary information from the above sample signage and then move on with their lives. Editors, however, have a gene that prohibits them from moving past such transgressions without righting the wrong.

Editors lose sleep asking themselves things like “the customer’s what?” and “If we don’t stop this, then who will?” after seeing possessives used to indicate plurals.

Work Your Just-for-Fun Muscle

Here’s what trips us up. The very things we critique for clients, friends, co-workers…anyone, really…are the things that pop up frequently in whatever we choose to read for fun. So just like we flip our switch from creative to analytic/writer to editor, it’s important to work the just-for-fun muscle, too.

After all, we’re not quitters. We will have fun reading, dammit. And we can ignore grammar mishaps for the sake of a good story. (We really can!) It might take modern pharmacological intervention, but we can do it.

There was a magical day when we all picked up a book and fell in love. And know what? That book probably wasn’t perfect. (Top secret insider info: none of them are.) But the story was fantastical, and we disappeared into our imaginations—and that’s what made us fall in love with the craft in the first place.

Let’s make a little more time for that. And keep taking time to look for the voices who are creating magic for future readers.

Wardrobe malfunction: writers, mind your hats

Posted on by JannyS

I know. It’s not nearly as exciting as other types of wardrobe malfunctions that have made the news, but if you’re a creative who switches gears often throughout the day (or the hour), you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

You know that project, the one you’ve had in your head for weeks but just haven’t started? The one you’ve been plotting and scheming and planning? The storyline is built out in your head. You know the characters. But when you sit down to write, you end up shooting yourself in the foot. Why? Because you sat down wearing the wrong hat.

Wardrobe selection is key

Recently, I’ve gotten into a habit of trying to write creatively while wearing my editor and proofreader hats—and let me tell you how that works. I sit down, take a sip of my caffeinated beverage of choice, crack my knuckles, belt out a couple of paragraphs—and THEN (this is where things go awry), I go back and read them, rip them apart, and rewrite them. Over and over and over again.

When I’m wearing my editor hat, I may as well type in red ink, because my story will undoubtedly be massacred as soon as the letters hit the screen. When I write with my editor hat on, I’m acting as judge, jury, and executioner to any idea before it even hits the page, when really what I need to do is just get the story out.

The fixing can come later

This is not an anomaly for writers, by the way. We’re all guilty of it. We all have a LOT going on, and some days, it’s really, really hard to be 100% present. We live in a time when it’s heroic to multi-task, it’s admirable to have a completely booked calendar, it’s the norm to eat dinner in the car between extra-curricular events. And it’s not really surprising that it’s difficult to separate all the jobs we do on a day-to-day basis.

In lieu of driving myself stark raving mad, I’ve written job descriptions for some of the various hats I wear, which will, ideally, help keep me on track (and working productively toward my goals):

  • Editor Hat: This hat gives me complete freedom to rip apart, change, and update copy in order to benefit the brand or story I am representing. With a focus on mechanics, readability, and seamless messaging, I take a line-by-line view of the content I’m editing and offer suggestions for grammatical corrections, as well as clarifications for consistency and style. The nerdy, sentence-diagramming girl in me really LOVES this hat.)
  • Writer Hat: This is a flamboyant, creative, might-only-make-sense-to-me hat. It’s a wear-it-with-sweatpants hat or a dress-it-up hat or a write-on-a-park-bench hat. All of these are ok, because right now, I’m the only one who’s going to see a single word that made it onto my screen. Half sentences? Run-ons? Rambling thoughts? Everything goes! (Honestly, they’ll make me angsty, and it will take every ounce of willpower I have NOT to correct things, but this is exactly where they belong…in the writing and creating phase.) This is the get-it-out phase, the fast-and-furious phase of getting words and plotlines into some semblance of a story. Everything does NOT have to be perfect at this point.
  • Idea Generator Hat: This hat is a hot mess. It has feathers and sequins with a dusting of glitter. It has a little bit of felt mixed with satin and wool, topped off with a glued-on band that’s partially falling off. It’s pretty much a hodge-podge of everything—an anything-goes hat. If an idea crosses my mind, it goes into the book or onto the list or wherever I’m keeping the latest compendium of evil plotlines. Absolutely NO editing or writing should happen with this hat. It’s a collecting hat of out-of-this-world ideas and what-if concepts. No correcting allowed.
  • Not Creating Right Now Hat: This could be the Mom Hat, the Family Hat, the Netflix Hat, the Shopping Hat…you get it. It’s the Don’t-Expect-Creative-Output Hat, the one that indicates it’s time to pay attention to other things and be fully present in equally important stuff that is NOT related to writing. (GASP?! What?) This hat’s pretty cool because it delivers a VERY necessary brain break—and it reminds you that it’s important to focus on all the really awesome LIFE stuff. BONUS: All that life stuff is what inspires our really awesome stories.

I’m hopeful that by choosing the correct hat for the task at hand, I can keep ME from sabbotaging myself! Very often writers find themselves going backwards in the middle of the creative process because they’re focused on the tiniest details of grammar and story construct, when really, what should come first are their personal insights, feelings, and learnings. Grammar and construct can be refined anytime, anywhere. Experience, nuance, and story are much more difficult to reconstruct.

Choose your hat

No more self-sabbotage for writers. More self-confidence. More finishing; fewer excuses. More moving foward; never backward. More confindence and pride in hard work. More excitement to begin again. More learning and listening. MORE CREATING.

Your hat—at any given moment—defines who you are, what’s important to you, and what you’re working toward. So, don your chapeau, author…it’s gonna be a helluva ride!