How a Book Is Bound

Here's a cool video—a serious one, not a jokey one—about one method by which a hardcover book can be bound. (It's from C-SPAN, which won't allow the video to be embedded in anyone's blog posts, so all I can do here is provide the link at YouTube.) This is the part of the publishing process that happens after authors, agents, freelance copyeditors like me, book designers, typesetters/page layout professionals, freelance proofreaders, freelance indexers, in-house editors, cover artists, in-house production editors, and printers have done their jobs. Note: The video is 11 minutes long.



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Talking About a Taboo

I am very grateful for a discussion currently going on on an e-mail list that I subscribe to. It's about suicide—who has ever contemplated it and who has ever helped a friend not go through with it.

I momentarily thought of suicide, to stop the emotional pain and upheaval, when my first marriage was ending years ago. My therapist shocked me out of thinking too long about it by telling me that if I were serious, she would be forced to start a procedure to remove my daughter from my custody, for my daughter's protection. The thought that my ex might have total custody of my sweet child (who turns 26 tomorrow) and that I might not be allowed to see her if I survived snapped me right back into the moment.

It's immensely reassuring to hear from listmates whom I perceive as mostly having everything together that they've been to the abyss too—and survived.

We are all human and vulnerable. I wish for us all a strong inner parent to advise and comfort us. And may more of us learn to act as a sort of foster parent when friends' inner parents temporarily fail them.



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Medical Writing and Editing: Conflicts of Interest

Those of you who write or edit manuscripts intended for medical journals may be interested in the new policy statement, from the World Association of Medical Editors, regarding financial, relational, political, and ethical conflicts of interest that can exist for authors, reviewers, and editors regarding materials prepared for peer-reviewed medical journals.



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Which Is More Important: Editing Courses or Editing Experience?

Hey, editing professionals and editor wannabees:

If you subscribe to the Copyediting‑L (CE‑L) e-mail list, have you been following the "certification" thread there yesterday (March 19) and today? If not, I highly recommend that you go read all of the posts, especially if you've ever been on the fence about whether to spend money on classes, conferences, or certification preparation. I've even recommended the series of posts to my mentees.

If you are already subscribed, you can read all of the posts in the thread by going to the CE‑L archives and doing a search. On that page, click the "Search Archives" link. On the page that you're taken to, type in the word certification in the "Subject Contains" box, and then type in "19 Mar 2009" (without the quotes) in the "Since" box. Click the "Search" button. That'll take you to a list of all the posts in the topic. To read a post, click on the hyperlinked numbers in the "Item #" column entry for that post.

Helen S's, Kim R's, and Amy E's posts are especially good. In fact, I liked Helen's so much that I obtained her permission to quote it (with minor modifications) atop the "Education and Certification" page of the Copyeditors' Knowledge Base within my web site.

If you aren't yet a CE‑L subscriber, here's how to become one:

• Create an e-mail to listserv@listserv.indiana.edu.



• Leave the subject blank.



• In the message area, type this message: subscribe copyediting‑l Firstname Lastname, where ‑l is a hyphen plus the lowercase letter L, not a hyphen plus the numeral 1.



• Firstname is your first name.



• Lastname is your last name.



• Delete any signature information. This is optional, but leaving the signature will cause the server to generate a somewhat perplexing error message.

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Brain Celebration!

Happy Friday, all. Here's my final, wonderful update on this topic:

Ed was told by his neurologist this morning that he will need neither brain surgery nor annual brain MRI scans for monitoring purposes!

His colloid brain cyst does not even have any blood vessels feeding it, so it cannot possibly grow, the neurologist said. He added that the cyst was very likely present before Ed was even born, and it has just lain dormant all these years. The neurologist said that it is extremely unlikely that the cyst will ever cause any symptoms in Ed; it's just a tiny bit of luggage he'll carry for the rest of his life (may it be very, very long).

Thanks so much for listening. Today's news is a huge load off my mind. Sometimes having a little bit of medical knowledge, as we medical copyeditors do, can cause much unnecessary stress. And having friends, online and offline, who care has lessened that stress.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!



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Screwing Mortgage-Holders in Secret

Our mortgage-holder has finally put up an online form through which people in financial distress can apply to get their monthly payments reduced. After you fill it out, you're supposed to get a call from the company to move the process along. My original e-mail requesting just such a call, which preceded the advent of the company's online form, never resulted in our getting a call.

Today we filled out the form after having gathered all of the necessary financial details. After I very wisely created a PDF of our completed application, I clicked the Submit button. The inept or not-very-thorough webmaster didn't set things up so that users get an acknowledgment of their submission, à la Webmastering 101, so who knows if anyone got our application through that form. All I got was a blank page. So I called the phone number listed on the application form, waited through several menus to get to a human, and got a fax number after explaining the problem and despite being assured that if I had indeed clicked the web site's Submit button, my form had been received. Yeah, uh-uh. I faxed over our application. We'll see how fast they move, considering that a large percentage of Americans are going through the same process.

Meanwhile, when I called, I had to input the last four digits of my Social Security number to identify myself. A recorded voice came on to tell me the amount of unpaid principle left on the mortgage, how much in property taxes we paid through our mortgage payments in 2008, and how much our most recent payment was and when it was made. It also mentioned that our mortgage is a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgage, so we will be eligible for help. Fine, but ... ack! Ours isn't a subprime mortgage, and no one with our mortgage-holder had ever informed us that our mortgage was now held at least in part by the very mortgage organizations that have helped cause the economy to fail. I got that info only incidentally, because the mortgage-holder decided to include it as part of the update info given by its recorded voice.

So much cr*p is done to the American consumer in secret. How can we, as a giant group of citizens, ever hope to get at the truth of what goes on with the companies we do business with?!



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"Houston, We Found the Brain"

Well, Ed's done with his brain scans for now and is headed off to work for the evening. On his way there, he'll stop back by the neurologist's office for a copy of his scans on CD. How cool will that be for us to be able to see his brain on my computer screen?

He'll have to wait for a phone call from the neurologist to learn about any significant findings regarding his colloid brain cyst.

For now, Ed says, he's just happy that the scans did indeed show that he does have a brain. I'm just happy that it wasn't obscured by all those millions of thoughts that ADHD makes constantly and randomly bounce off the inside of his head. ;-)



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"If I Only Had a Brain"

Finally, Ed has gotten a neurology referral.

He'll undergo a full set of brain magnetic resonance imaging scans tomorrow morning (March 6) to get copious baseline data on his colloid brain cyst. I'm sure that we won't hear about the results immediately, but at least our HMO picked a specialist 5 minutes down the road from us—small miracle!—instead of at the other end of the county.

Now I have "If I Only Had a Brain" stuck in my head.



Ed husband colloid cyst brain surgery EditorMom

If You Can't Afford Your Mortgage Anymore ...

I'm going to tell you a bit of my financial story not to garner pity but in case you also are having problems making your mortgage payments in this shriveled economy.

I'm sure that some will think that this is TMI, but I've found that when you keep quiet about absolutely everything, nobody gets information that might help them. Plus, silence about life difficulties gives them an unnecessary stigma. If this story bothers you, please just move along to the next blog rather than post nasty comments. I want people to know that being knocked for a loop by the awful economy despite having been financially responsible does not make one a "bad" person.

My husband, Ed, was laid off after 14 years on the job in October 2007. He then started his own cabinetmaking business, taking out two business loans in the process, and had a very healthy income for just over a year. Then the bottom fell out of the U.S. economy and his income pretty much disappeared. I make a very good income as a freelance editor, but editing isn't as lucrative as many other professions. What I earn can't support four people, a mortgage, two business loans, health insurance policy premiums, plus the basic expenses of life in the middle class. (Both of our old vehicles have long since been paid for.) Ed has been working part time for a grocery-delivery service and getting a few small cabinetmaking gigs here and there. Put all of that together, and we're now scraping the bottom of our financial barrel. Yesterday, we closed one of Ed's two IRAs—I have one also—so that we can make our currently due mortgage payment and pay other bills. We're not yet delinquent on our mortgage, but we will be after we use up the other two IRAs.

I just now sent an e-mail to our mortgage-holder telling them that Ed and I want to apply for a "Home Affordable Modification under the new financial stability federal legislation" so that we can keep affording our mortgage.

I asked that they call us tomorrow so that we have time to gather all of the necessary documents (past tax forms, profit-and-loss statements from our two businesses, info on Ed's business loans, etc.) ready. If things work out right, the mortgage-holder, which is required by law to participate because it received federal bailout funds, will likely lengthen the payment period of our mortgage by several years so as to decrease our monthly payments. Lenders are just getting their federal info packets on this program today, March 4.

If you know anybody in the United States having similar problems because of decreased income, let them know that the earlier they take action, the more help there is available. The further behind they get financially, the fewer their options will be, and the longer they wait to take action, the fewer the available assistance funds there will be, so they can't let fear or shame immobilize them. Send them here.

The site may respond a little slowly because so many people are trying to access it. Anyone wanting mortgage assistance of various kinds should use the short questionnaire(s) accessed through the "find out if you are eligible" link on that page. Your answers to the questions will result in your being directed to the correct page for the type of assistance that you are eligible for. For more general information, go to the web site of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Be aware, though, that that site is also getting swamped as everyone remotely eligible for assistance goes there to look for it.



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A Soap Opera: As the HMO Turns

Here's the latest episode in the soap opera that life around here has become:

You probably remember that Ed has been working part time for a grocery-delivery service because the awful economy has meant that his cabinetmaking clients aren't spending much money. On February 6, while checking out the back of a different kind of truck that he was to be driving that night for the deliveries, he gashed his forehead severely. He went to the local hospital's emergency department for stitches. The physician had him undergo a head computed tomography (CT) scan just in case there were internal injuries. There weren't, but the scan turned up a brain colloid cyst. These cysts are always benign, never malignant. But they are always located just where, if they are large enough, they can block the flow of cerebral spinal fluid, which can result in odd symptoms and even unexpected death because of high intracranial pressure.

Of course we were scared. We tried hard to get Ed's primary-care physician's office to get Ed a referral to a neurosurgeon, which is what the hospital suggested we do. (We couldn't just go back to the hospital and request to be seen by the physicians who treated Ed the night he injured his forehead, because that first visit to the emergency department was a worker's comp issue, whereas this brain tumor is not.)

But as I just now wrote only somewhat coherently to update a friend:

Grrr! Ed's physician's front office is incompetent! The doc looked at Ed's brain CT scan film yesterday, before Ed's appointment with him today, and saw the colloid brain cyst that the hospital emergency-department radiologist spotted 3 weeks ago. Today, the staff can't find the film! Idiots!

Ed was just now at the doc's office now for his postponed physical exam. These staff members are the same idiots who refused our request for a referral from the doc to a neurosurgeon before the originally scheduled exam date of February 18, which they rescheduled for today and said no referral before today, even though I told them it was regarding a brain tumor. If Ed were dying, would they have moved any faster? I doubt it. This is a #(*^$@ HMO.

So now Ed's doc has to call up the hospital to order another set of CT scan films stat, so that he can look at them with a neurologist. He told Ed (who called me during a break during his physical exam) that the cyst is "only" 3 mm and should probably just be watched at this point—no brain surgery to remove it for now—with Ed getting a new MRI scan once a year. But I want to hear this from a neurologist, dammit! The HMO is supposed to call Ed within a couple of days with arrangements for him to schlep halfway across Long Island (sigh—the local HMO practice facility doesn't have a magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] scanner or a CT scanner) to get a series of baseline MRI scans with (radioactive) contrast dye so that it can have plenty of info to compare against future annual MRIs.

I told Ed that if he didn't emphasize to his physician that a member of his front-office staff caused us lots of mental anguish by making us wait for 3 weeks for this appointment, despite my telling her about the brain tumor, that I was going to get on the phone and raise hell. The dimwitted staff member should have at least performed triage by putting me on hold for 30 seconds, telling the doctor about the situation, and then getting Ed in for an appointment before other patients with less scary ailments. Luckily for that staff member, Ed did what I asked, and the doc says that he'll get to the bottom of the situation. You don't let your patients sit around for 3 weeks in an agonizing knowledge vacuum. You just don't.

Anyway ... no brain surgery for Ed as of right now. Thank goodness.



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Still Waiting, and Not Patiently

It's Friday—how the heck did this Friday manage to show up so quickly after the last one?—and I'm hoping that our health-care providers have actually done their job.

Ed and I have been waiting for what seems like forever for a referral to a neurologist for him, so that we can get on with the process of figuring out what to do about the colloid brain cyst that a hospital radiologist found on the head computed tomograpy (CT) scans that Ed underwent way back on February 6 when he gashed his forehead at work. The last we heard was that the hospital was in the process of acting on our request to send the CT films to Ed's primary-care physician at the HMO's local group practice.

If he were dying, would the bureaucracy move any faster? I doubt it. It's not the bureaucrats' lives that are on hold.

I'll keep you posted.



Ed husband colloid cyst brain surgery EditorMom

An Upside-Down Flamingo in the Office

I have to have my office in my kitchen because there is no other available space in my home. But there are occasional compensations. This was the view in my office midmorning today, just about two feet away from my desk:



















That fine physique—though my crude art-program drawing doesn't do it justice—belongs to my husband, Ed, who is never one to sit still or ask others to fix things for him. (If only I'd thought to take some photos using my cell phone!)

I had been editing in a desultory fashion, wanting to find an excuse not to be working today. Our 25-plus-year-old clothes dryer, which we inherited from his parents, obliged. It began squeaking a bit as it was drying a load of clothes. Then it squeaked more and more. Finally it was squawking so loud that I truly could not concentrate. I buzzed Ed on his business phone's intercom (in an earlier incarnation, his wood shop was the two-car garage that is attached to our home) and begged him to come do something abou the awful racket.

He came upstairs, figured out that the dryer's tensioning pulley needed lubricating, got the tools he needed to do the job, lubed the dryer, then assumed the "upside-down flamingo" position, as he calls it, to reconnect the dryer's vent hose on the back of the dryer. There's not enough room behind the dryer in which to stash a long vent hose to make the flamingo position unnecessary, so every time he has to do something to the dryer, he must turn himself upside down to connect the short hose while the dryer is close enough to the wall for the hose not to disconnect itself again.

Here's a side view of the upside-down flamingo in action:
























Life is rarely dull when you're self-employed.



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Heavy-Duty Cell-Phone Clip-On Pouches

If your job keeps you out and about enough that you're not really a desk jockey—or you have a friend or family member who has a very physical job—you would probably like to have a much tougher cell-phone case than is sold to the general public, at least in the United States.

My husband, Ed, is a cabinetmaker who is always on his feet and wears his cell phone on a belt clip. But with the wimpy cell-phone cases that most cell-phone stores sell, his poor phone was pretty much unprotected when it was perpetually knocked against workbenches and other hard surfaces, which can shorten a phone's life considerably. He wears through those cheapo covers faster than small children outgrow clothing. So I searched online and found a web site that sells the kind of cell-phone cases that police officers, firefighters, and other really physical workers like to use.

Yes, the site is ugly, but it sells good items. Ed bought the Amorcase-SP1 (enlargeable photos here) for his small LG flip phone that he'd bought through Verizon. It's heavy-duty nylon, and the belt clip on the back side is very heavy duty. He's happy with it.

Ed is not affiliated with the company and neither am I. He's just a satisfied customer, and I'm just passing along potentially helpful info.



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Online Friendships Can Bring in New Clients

Sometimes the best client referrals come from colleagues you've never met.

One listmate from an e-mail list for editorial professionals and I corresponded offlist a few times when times were tough for her. When I was recently worried about income in my household because the poor economy has made things difficult for my husband's relatively new business (and that's still an ongoing concern), that listmate e-mailed me and gave me the name of one of her most lucrative clients, plus contact information for the person there whom she deals with. She also e-mailed that person and recommended my editing services. I took the company's editing test, and yesterday I received a message from that person welcoming me to the company's pool of freelancers.

A male listmate from that same e-mail list has kindly given me several referrals to new clients in the fairly recent past. One other female listmate from the same list, with whom I developed an offlist friendship a few years ago, for a time held an in-house position at a publishing house. While she was there, I did a few projects for her as a freelancer.

By referring me, these folks have helped out their clients/employers, helped me out, and renewed my faith in the kindness of my fellow human beings. There are lovely people to be found everywhere, and it pays to get to know as many e-mail listmates offlist as possible. Don't be afraid to strike up offlist conversations with them, no matter how little or how much (like me) experience you have. I don't mean that you should start out by asking for work. Develop a friendship, which is valuable itself even if you never get a referral. We all need friends.

You never know who will be in a position to help you out or how much satisfaction you can feel when you have a chance to help someone else out.



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Granddaughter Blogging

My beautiful granddaughter, Ana, 21 months old, fresh out of bed this morning and jabbering away:
























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A Few Kind Words Go a Long Way

What a nice way to begin a workday! I got this e-mail this morning from an author for whom I edited a large chapter in his autobiography:

Thank you for the final version. I have never seen such a thorough editing job in my life. I wish that I had the means to afford your services for my entire book, but unfortunately I spent too much money on other editors who did a very superficial job.

I'll be working with a huge smile today.



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Editing Déjà Vu

I edit so many medical-journal articles that I forget each of them very quickly after having finished them. I guess that that's my brain's way of clearing space for incoming details that must be stored.

It's crunch time for one of the journals I edit: Another issue is coming up soon, so I have all of the issue's articles on my computer's hard drive, ready for me to start editing. So this evening, wanting to quickly get that feeling of relief at having made progress, I chose the shortest article, a 7-page case history report, from the "unedited" subfolder of the "issues in progress" folder, copied it to the "edited" folder, and began working on it.

Hmmm, I thought after a while. Didn't I recently work on a manuscript about an unusual presentation of hypotension? ... Nah, probably just remembering another hypotension manuscript. But I kept having that same nagging sense of déjà vu. So I opened up the "edited" subfolder within the "issues completed" folder, and lo and behold, there was an article with a similar file name. I had already edited the manuscript ... at the beginning of January. Ah, well, not much time wasted, as my time clock told me that I'd spent only 15 minutes reediting.

Curious, I split my computer screen and then opened up the previously edited version of the file next to the newly edited version. I was surprised to find that I had made almost exactly the same edits to both documents. I guess that means that it's possible to identify an editor's editing style. But that just felt so weird. I'd never realized that I'm so predictable. ;-)



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"Freelance National Anthem"

Hee, hee! It's sing-along time. If you edit or perform another editorial task instead of writing, just adapt the lyrics where necessary. Enjoy!





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Getting the Health-Care Bureaucracy to Care

So, annoyed with the front-desk staff in the office of Ed's primary-care doc dragging things out regarding the newfound colloid cyst in his brain, I had Ed try calling the doctor's office instead of me doing so again. This may have gotten people moving; we'll see.

Whoever he spoke with there had him call the hospital to get the appropriate person there to fax the records from Ed's trip to the emergency department on to Ed's doc. So first, the hospital faxed a consent form to our house. Because Ed's out in the field installing cabinet doors today, I filled it out, faked his signature, and faxed it back to the hospital. Then I typed up the following note as if I were Ed, faked his signature, and faxed it to the doctor's office so that whoever gets the hospital medical records will know what the heck they're about. Let's hope this works and Ed gets a referral tomorrow or the next day.

Hello, Dr. C_____.

You will soon receive, by fax, medical records from Huge Teaching Hospital. I was treated in the emergency room there on Friday, February 6, 2009, for a gash that I sustained (while at work) to the left side of my forehead; I required stitches. To check for additional injury, the hospital staff had me undergo a CT scan. I had no internal injuries to my head.

However, I received a call over the weekend from the hospital informing me that the scan had shown that I have a small colloid cyst in my brain. I was told that I should see a neurologist as soon as possible. I need you to provide a written referral to a neurologist, preferably one who has privileges at Huge Teaching Hospital, so that I don’t have to travel across the county or into Queens for treatment. I would like to have the referral very shortly, despite a woman who works in your front office having told my wife that I would have to wait until my February 27 appointment with you (for a physical exam) to request a referral. From what I have read since the weekend, a colloid cyst is not something to be taken lightly.

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Colloid Cyst in the Brain

Things have taken a bit of a soap-opera-like turn in our family.*

Friday, Ed had just arrived to work an evening shift for his part-time job with a grocery-delivery service. (You'll recall that he had to take the job because the economy has messed with the pocketbooks of his potential clients enough that he's getting very few cabinetmaking gigs lately, meaning that we're barely affording our mortgage payments these days.) The truck that he was scheduled to drive that day was different from the ones that he usually drives for the company, so he went to the back of it, while it was being loaded with groceries that he was to take to customers, to check it out.

The mirrors positioned on the back end of the truck were apparently placed lower than what he is used to dealing with, so when he went to pull himself up into the back of the truck, his forehead slammed into one of the mirrors, putting a big gash in his head and knocking him to the ground. He bled profusely and had to go to the local hospital emergency room for stitches.

In the course of making sure that Ed had no internal injuries to his head, the hospital had him undergo computed tomography (CT) scans. The physicians found no internal injuries, so Ed was sent home, having already been stitched up.

The next day, we found a message on our home answering machine for Ed to call a specific nurse at the hospital for follow-up. We thought that she was just checking to see if he'd had any ominous symptoms (you know, dizziness, passing out, etc.) overnight, which is always a concern with any head injury. Ed called back, prepared to say that he was fine but was surprised to see that the blow to his forehead had caused him to have two black eyes. (That was caused by all the blood from his wound dispersing internally.)

The nurse told him that the radiologist, looking at the films from Ed's CT scans, had found a small colloid cyst in Ed's brain and that Ed should call the hospital's neurology department on Monday for an appointment.

We checked out colloid cyst online and found that it's a benign tumor that usually shows up at about the age Ed is—47—if it's going to show up. The part that has us frightened out of our wits is that what we've read seems to say that most of the time, neurologists do brain surgery to remove these cysts because they can grow and block the flow of cerebrospinal fluid, causing swelling and sometimes coma and death.

Ack!

People with these cysts sometimes have symptoms such as headaches, limb weakness, and loss of consciousness. Ed has had none of these. We've discussed the situation, and Ed says that he'd rather just go in for periodic scans and leave the cyst alone until it absolutely must be removed. I'm not happy about the prospect of brain surgery, because despite the many advances that there have been in the field over the years, messing around in the brain can be tricky and can unintentionally cause neurological damage. Plus, there's recuperation time. Both Ed and I are wondering how in hell we would afford for him not to be working while he recuperates from brain surgery. We'd lose our home for sure.

Of course, all of this worrying may be unwarranted; the neurologist might say that the cyst is very small and in a location where it's unlikely to cause problems, making brain surgery unnecessary. Ed's annual physical exam is Wednesday next week, and while he's there, he'll ask his primary care physician to provide him with a referral to a neurologist. Then we'll have to see how soon he can get an appointment with the neurologist.

All of this waiting and not knowing is paralyzing for Ed and for me.

If you've had any personal experience with colloid cysts or a member of your family has, please tell me about it, especially if you or your family member underwent brain surgery.


____________________
*Ed, my husband, gave me his permission to tell you about all of this.



Updated at 11:42 a.m., 2/10/09: Of course! Ed's physician's office calls and leaves a message saying that his 2/18 appointment (originally to be for his annual physical exam) will have to be rescheduled. I promptly get on the phone—because Ed is en route to a client's home where he'll be installing cabinetry—to reschedule the appointment for him. I ask if it's possible to get the required referral to a neurologist before the newly rescheduled 2/27 appointment. Lots of being put on hold while I wait, wait, wait. Finally, the woman gets back on the line and says no, Ed will have to wait until 2/27 to get the referral. I explain that Ed is walking around with a potential time bomb in his brain and that sooner would be best. She puts me on hold again. When she's back on the line once again, still acting as if she really doesn't give a damn, she still says no. More waiting without any information—just what we don't need.


Ed husband colloid cyst brain surgery EditorMom

Spring Skill Boosters for Editorial Types

Get ready to sharpen your editorial skills and make yourself more desirable as an employee or freelancer! The lineup of spring courses offered by the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) is now ready:

• Blogging 101 (online, 4 sessions): For authors wanting to connect with an audience and freelance editors wanting to attract clients. Instructor Rebecca Agiewich is the author of BreakupBabe: A Novel (Ballantine, 2006), whose book was born from her dating blog Breakup Babe. Wednesdays, March 25 through April 15; EFA members, $135; nonmembers, $160.


• Copyediting II (online, 4 sessions): Goes beyond the basics. Instructor Kris Fulsaas is a freelance editor and proofreader, has 28 years' experience in publishing and is an instructor in the University of Washington's editing certificate program. Wednesdays, April 8 through April 29; EFA members, $135; nonmembers, $160.


• Résumés for Freelancers (online, 3 sessions): If you're a freelancer, you need a functional—or skills-based—résumé, not the traditional chronological résum7ée of a job hunter. Instructor Sheila Buff, a freelancer since 1981, is an author and ghostwriter and is the author of the EFA booklet Résumés for Freelancers. Mondays, April 20 through May 4; EFA members, $100; nonmembers, $125.


• Substantive Editing Clinic (at the EFA office in Manhattan): An intensive one-day, hands-on course built on exercises. Instructor Maron L. Waxman is the retired editorial director of special projects for the American Museum of Natural History, was editorial director of trade reference at HarperCollins, and has taught in the New York University and City University of New York publishing programs. Saturday, May 2, 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m. EFA members, $135; nonmembers, $160. If you also sign up for the Advanced Substantive Editing Clinic, you'll save 20%.


• Advanced Substantive Editing Clinic (at the EFA office in Manhattan): This one-day course picks up where the Substantive Editing Clinic leaves off, and you'll work on actual manuscripts. Instructor Maron L. Waxman is the retired editorial director of special projects for the American Museum of Natural History, was editorial director of trade reference at HarperCollins, and has taught in the New York University and City University of New York publishing programs. Saturday, May 9, 9:30 a.m..–5 p.m. EFA members: $160; nonmembers: $185. If you also sign up for the Advanced Substantive Editing Clinic, you'll save 20%.


• Copyright and Permissions: The Basics (online, 4 sessions): Instructor Tricia Kinman has been permissions editor and permissions manager for Elsevier for 4 years. Mondays, May 4 through May 25. EFA members, $135; nonmembers, $160.


• Introduction to AMA Style (online, 4 sessions): Interested in getting into medical proofreading or copyediting? You need to know how AMA style differs from Chicago and APA style, how to format tables and graphs, and what the essential elements of a biomedical research paper are. Instructors are Eileen Girten and Jennifer Maybin. Girten teaches chemistry, is completing a master's of science degree in biomedical writing at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, and is coeditor of the quarterly newsletter of the Delaware chapter of the American Medical Writers Association. Maybin is a medical writer and editor with 20 years' experience. Fridays, March 15 through June 3. EFA members, $135; nonmembers: $160.

For more information and to sign up, see this page of the EFA web site.

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My Tea Supply

I don't go to spas; can't afford them. I don't get manicures; I prefer short, unadorned nails. I don't get pedicures; see "I don't get manicures." I'm not a clotheshorse. I go to a cheap place to get my hair cut, and sometimes I don't get around to doing that until my hair has grown unrecognizably out of its simple wash-and-go style.

Good teas—I mean whole-leaf imported teas—are my one indulgence, a way that I take care of myself. I favor Japanese and Chinese green teas and white teas, as they carry more of the agents than black teas do that appear to help prevent colon cancer, ovarian cancer, and other cancers (see this, this, this, and this, for starters). But mostly I like them because they have such lovely subtle tastes, give me a caffeine dose without making me feel jittery the way coffee does (and so I haven't drunk coffee regularly in years), and put me in mind of Asian meditation methods, which relaxes me.

I don't drink soft drinks; they're loaded with sugar and other unnecessary junk and have too many calories. I don't generally drink cow's milk; when I want something milklike with my cold breakfast cereal, I drink unflavored soy milk. I often drink plain old water throughout the day. But mainly, I drink a lot—a lot—of tea, all of it unsweetened.

And here is where I store most of it before I brew it:

My Husband the Master Cabinetmaker^tm made this tea wheel, which is based on an idea I had. Ever notice those metal wheels with clips on them in diners, where the wait staff clip orders for the cooks to see and fill? I wanted some kind of rotating wheel onto which I could clip my bags of tea leaves from SpecialTeas. (Sometime after I wrote this post, that company was bought out by Teavana, a company I don't patronize. I now get most of my teas from many of the companies listed here.) I'd stored them in the cabinet above and to the left of where the wheel now is, and they'd often fall out onto the countertop when I opened the cabinet door. Or I'd be lazy and tend to just use the bags at the front of the cabinet, and then get bored with drinking the same few teas over and over again. The tea wheel lets me see what I have "in stock" and cleared out some space in that cabinet ... for the teas that I order that don't come in convenient zip-close bags: tulsi ginger tea from India, olive-leaf tea from Olivus, and jiaogulan-leaf tea from Immortalitea. And of course, there are the boxes of pedestrian herbal teas that everyone else in my family drinks. Yes, I am a tea snob.

That blinding white light that you see in the photo to the right and in the one above is the sun coming through an extremely long but very short window in my kitchen that takes the place of the backsplash (like the tile one shown here) in most American kitchens. That window is currently the only thing that Ed (My Husband the Master Cabinetmaker^tm) and I like about our outdated kitchen, and that's because he installed the window—it wasn't original to our 45-plus-year-old house. One day when we can afford to do so, we will redo the kitchen and replace the ugly 1970s aqua swirls of the Formica-covered countertops and reface the horrid cabinets that are currently covered merely with rub-on stain and wax. To Ed, the kitchen is a professional embarrassment, because he builds top-end kitchens that you see in magazines, and ours looks like ... well, like ugh. We can't afford his services, and we can't afford to pay for someone else's services (which he'd nitpick) so that he can keep working. ;-) So he begged me to tell you here that our kitchen is in no way a reflection on his talent as a cabinetmaker.

That disclaimer out of the way, I ask this: What do you do to take care of yourself? What refreshes you?



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Earning His Pay

Hot damn! The new U.S. president is already earning his pay.

Obama has just frozen salaries for two years for White House staffers who make $100,000 or more annually; that affects about 100 employees. And he's placed restrictions on lobbyists:

... Obama's new lobbying rules will not only ban aides from trying to influence the administration when they leave his staff. Those already hired will be banned from working on matters they have previously lobbied on, or to approach agencies that they once targeted.

The rules also ban lobbyists from giving gifts of any size to any member of his administration. It wasn't immediately clear whether the ban would include the traditional "previous relationships" clause, allowing gifts from friends or associates with which an employee comes in with strong ties.

The new rules also require that anyone who leaves his administration is not allowed to try to influence former friends and colleagues for at least two years. Obama is requiring all staff to attend to an ethics briefing like one he said he attended last week.

Obama called the rules tighter "than under any other administration in history." They followed pledges during his campaign to be strict about the influence of lobbyists in his White House.

"The new rules on lobbying alone, no matter how tough, are not enough to fix a broken system in Washington," he said. "That's why I'm also setting rules that govern not just lobbyists but all those who have been selected to serve in my administration." ...

He has also already called the heads of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, and Jordan about the Gaza conflict.

Here's the whole story.

And military judges have responded to the president's request to suspend war-crimes trials at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base; he is now circulating the draft of an executive order to close the detention center (story here).


Updated at 4:25 p.m.: And how could I forget this? Yesterday, the day he was inaugurated, Obama halted all of Bush's last-minute regulations until they can be reviewed by the new administration.



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Editorial Types, Get Your Winter Learning Groove On

Hear ye, hear ye! The Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) has lined up some online classes for you:

• Magazine Writing Basics (online, 4 weeks): Wednesdays, February 4 through March 4; EFA members, $160; nonmembers, $185.



• Writing from Healthy Starts (online, 4 weeks): Mondays, February 23 through March 23; EFA members, $135; nonmembers, $160.



• Introduction to Developmental and Structural Editing: Fiction (online, 6 weeks): Mondays, March 2 through April 11; EFA members, $160; nonmembers, $185.



• Indexing Basics (online, 4 weeks): Wednesdays, March 4 through March 25. EFA members, $135; nonmembers, $160.



• Online Editing/Writing for Corporate and Media (online, 4 weeks): Wednesdays, March 9 through March 30: Wednesdays, 8-9 p.m. Eastern time; homework due Fridays, 5 p.m. Eastern time; EFA members, $160; nonmembers, $185.

For more information and to sign up, see this page of the EFA web site (courses not yet posted there) or write education@the-efa.org.



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A More Inclusive Wish

The current trend of U.S. political leaders closing their speeches with "God bless America" seems to me to be dismissive of those who don't believe in God and to uncomfortably mix church and state. And I call myself a practicing Christian.

If politicos feel the need to close with some sort of wish for the greater good, how about "May we all always be our best selves, for the sake of one another, the sake of our nation, and the sake of our world"?



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A Joyful Day

10:33 a.m. — I am attempting to work today, on what should be a national holiday: the inauguration of a new president. This one is mature, intelligent, even-tempered, young, forward-looking, and, incidentally, the first half-black national leader.

I am watching the festivities and solemn ceremonies on TV, from the warm comfort of my home. Please forgive any hyperbole that you might perceive here as I post throughout the day, but you must understand that I, like the thousands of people crowding the National Mall, have been waiting for such a long time for government that makes sense.

Forgive me, those of you who are not religious, but this day feels holy to me, in the sense that so many people are coming together to celebrate their plans to be their best selves for the next several years. It is going to be the "in" thing to be optimistic and hardworking and kind and selfless, and that is holy. Barack Obama is not perfect, but neither is anyone else in this country, and yet most of us will be striving to get back to our best selves and our best community. That is holy.

That is hope, and hope is vital to living fully.

11:24 a.m. — It's so amazing to see all of those former presidents filing into one place. Jimmy Carter looks so much healthier than George H.W. Bush.

And what a snub that Republican Sen. John Cornyn delayed Hillary Clinton's confirmation as secretary of state by a day, supposedly because he wasn't satisifed with her answers to questions during confirmation hearings. I'm sure that he just didn't want her to be able to attend Obama's inauguration as secretary of state.

12:56 p.m. — What an inspiring speech by our new president! It was strong yet conciliatory, a call to action and a call to be our better selves. I'm ready to work hard for my country. Are you?

3:15 p.m. — The only thing that I did not like about Obama's inauguration was his choice of the homophobic Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation. I understand wanting to build bridges between opposing schools of thought, but Obama's inviting that guy felt to me as if Obama had invited a member of the KKK. Blech!

But then came the benediction given by the Rev. Joseph Lowery. At one point, he prayed, "We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right." Powerful truth there in the guise of humor. Way to go, Rev. Lowery!



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My Name Is Katharine, and I Am a Dork

I'll admit it: I had a fairly insular, provincial life as a child growing up on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Someone calling my childhood home long distance—only from somewhere else within the United States, of course; never from another country—on our rotary phone was cause for great excitement; shushing all around, so that the called could hear the caller and nothing else; and then ending the call as soon as possible, because long distance was expensive, you know.

Since becoming an adult, I've been a newspaper reporter and seen all sorts of grisly and appalling things, worked in publishing in Manhattan and risked getting run over by cabdrivers and talked by phone with people across the country, and been a parent and seen and heard all sort of wondrous things and gross things. You'd think that I wouldn't have much of a sense of awe left.

But I do, and I'm approaching my fiftieth birthday.

I just got off the phone with a new client from South Korea who wants me to edit his manuscript before he submits it for publication in an English-language U.S. medical journal. It was thrilling to know that I was speaking with someone from the other side of the world, from a completely different culture, whose clock said that it was 14 hours later there than it is here and who probably didn't get that much sleep last night because he was on duty, who is doing surgery on people and making their lives more livable, ... and who wants my services so much that he didn't care about the cost of first faxing me long distance and then calling me long distance from his cell phone—he tried everything he could think of, after his ISP blocked my domain, to reach me. Long distance!

Is that cool or what? And if you think I'm a dork, I just don't care.



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Want to Look Smart?

Want to be taken seriously, bloggers and blog commenters, copywriters, and wannabe authors of best-selling books? Learn how to spell and use punctuation!



And please learn before you contract for my services, or you're going to be paying a lot of money that you shouldn't really have to. I'm expensive. You just want to be paying for help with transition, flow, comprehensiveness, documentation, concision, and clarity—not all of that plus the basics of spelling and punctuation.



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A Good Kid

I'm so pleased to be 14-year-old Neil's mother.

He got home from school a half hour ago and volunteered to use the snow blower to clear our driveway and his grandparents'. (My in-laws live in the downstairs apartment within our home; they have a separate driveway.) After a quick phone consultation with Ed, who had just left for his evening job, about Neil's capabilities with the snow blower, I consented.

Neil safely backed our old car out of the driveway and parked it perfectly parallel with the curb, then competently plowed the driveway. Then he pulled the car back in. Next, knowing better than to take risks with his grandparents' two vehicles, he left them where they sat in their driveway and plowed a path from the grandparents' door and down their driveway to the street. He even went next door, without my suggesting it, and offered to plow—for no charge—the driveway of our friend, a woman who moved here after having grown up in Hong Kong and whom we suspect doesn't own a snow shovel. She, not being aware of my gangly guy's prowess with the snow blower, thanked him but turned down his offer, mostly likely concerned about the safety of the rental car sitting in her driveway.

When he came back into the house, I told him that I was very pleased with him. He said, "I just feel like I should help other people out [by using the snow blower] because it's more snow blower than we really need."

Good kid.



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A Tongue-in-Cheek Look at the Publishing Process

I especially love the part about 18 copyediting passes. Uh-huh.



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You Just Never Know

Back on December 31, I told the weird tale of how things went when Ed tried to get a job with Peapod, a grocery-delivery service.

The job is finally a reality.

On Saturday, the interviewer left a phone message for Ed, who had just left for his shift at the dreaded Walmart: "Ed, it's X. I hope to God you're still available, because we need you. Please give me a call and we'll get the paperwork finished and get you scheduled for work." Ed starts work there on Wednesday.

Ed questioned the interviewer about why he had seemed irritated with Ed the last time that they had spoken. The man explained that he was irritated with Peapod's human resources staff. He was being pushed by management to set up a new delivery route but human resources wasn't passing along paperwork on interviewed job candidates in a timely fashion. So he finally told management, "No. I'm not setting up this new route until your human resources people get their act together." Ed's paperwork showed up with the batch that the human resources magically produced in an instant, so Ed got that call. Soon he will be getting good tips, making more money in 3 days with Peapod than he did in 5 days at Walmart, and getting more respect from his supervisors than he did at Walmart, where employees are mere commodities. And meanwhile, he's still working on that kitchen refinishing project.

Lesson? Don't count your eggs till they're hatched, but don't assume that if they take a very long while to hatch that they're duds to be disposed of. ;-)



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Wordles

Here is a Wordle of my business web site:





And here's one of this blog:



Go make a Wordle of your blog or of the text of your choice. Why? Because word clouds are fun, don't dump rain or snow on anyone, and are a form of art.



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Hate Speech

Here's a video clip that a lot of teens need to see:




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My Spirit Guide

Mourning doves are my favorite birds because a community of them used to sing in my maternal grandmother's beautiful flower-laden backyard in San Antonio, Texas.

Ever since she died when I was 28 or so, I've pictured her spirit embodied in a mourning dove. When a mourning dove coos at me,* it's as if Grandma has stopped by to tell me that everything will be okay. It was her birth surname, O'Moore, that I took as my surname after my first marriage ended ... and that I kept as part of my surname when I married for the second time.

Whenever it's cold and gray outside, as it is today, I yearn for spring, when mourning doves will be cooing everywhere I look.


____________________________
*The birdsong sound file is found at Bird Watcher's Digest, which obtained it courtesy of Lang Elliott, NatureSound Studio.



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Knowledge with a Price

Sometimes my work makes me sad.

This afternoon, I'll be editing a manuscript about gas gangrene in wounds caused by buildings falling on and trapping people in China during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. I know that what the researcher-physician authors learned during the quake will help people wounded by all sorts of severe physical trauma. But just imagining the anguish on the faces of those injured parents and children and grandchildren—and the faces of the friends and relatives searching for them—makes me hurt for them all.

To help people so badly hurt and not fall apart yourself takes incredible courage and emotional strength and resilience. I'm grateful for physicians and other health-care workers who can do that.



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My Exciting Life

Upon noting my most recent LinkedIn status ("editing a manuscript on volumetric analysis in intertrochanteric fractures of the femur"), a friend e-mailed me with the injunction to get a life.

I replied that my getting a life this evening shall consist of watching Ghost Whisperer* while eating a lovely, fragrant bean-and-tomato stew concocted by my mother-in-law. Here's hoping that the episode neither is a rerun nor is preempted by stupid football. The only good thing to come out of Ed's having to work at the reprehensible Walmart is that I get all of this great food to myself. Of course, its being both tasty and healthy means that neither of our boys will touch it. They will likely eat grilled-cheese sandwiches instead, but at least they will also deign to eat the small spinach salad I will insist on.

Editors live such wild and crazy lives, don't they? ;-)


Updated at 11:37 p.m.: Damn! Tonight's episode was a rerun. But at least a second rerun episode followed it, and the promo for next week's show says it'll be a new one in which Jim (see footnote below) just may recover his memories.


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*The plotline of which has taken a very distressing turn: Jim, beloved and hunky husband of ghost-whisperer Melinda, was accidentally shot and killed by a police officer. His spirit hung around, disembodied, for a while because he couldn't bear to leave the love of his life. When a young firefighter died, Jim's spirit saw a chance to hang around physically too and swooped in to inhabit the newly dead firefighter's body, thus bringing the firefighter back to life with Jim's spirit instead of his own. Now Melinda has to wade through lots of emotional pain waiting for Jim (in a new body) to recognize her as his wife. Argh! Very stupid move on the writers' part.



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Very Close to Home

The New York Times has finally noticed that the recession has spread to where I live, in a small wrong-side-of-the-tracks neighborhood in downstate New York that is surrounded by large areas of affluence:

This winter day begins a new year of the mortgage crisis. Nothing is certain about the miseries ahead except that they are growing. It is, for example, a freezing morning on Long Island—a national symbol of the single-family suburb. Its two counties, Nassau and Suffolk, boast well-run governments, an educated work force and a long history of stability and affluence. Comfort and consumption are the twin strands of their DNA. But the struggle there is acute.

In Nassau County, New York State's richest one, the foreclosure whirlwind hit hard. Shelters are filling up and food pantries are emptying. More than 500 people sought emergency housing from the county in a recent December week. Most were families with children. ...

As people lose not only homes but also jobs, pain is cascading to the bottom rungs of the economy. The Workplace Project, a longstanding defender of immigrant workers' rights in Hempstead, has seen an alarming rise in reports of unpaid wages, said Nadia Marin-Molina, its executive director. Contractors are cutting costs by missing payrolls and are counting on an undocumented work force not to complain. ...

Those are the same contractors who haven't been calling my husband, Ed, for the last 4 months to ask him to subcontract for them.

"I've been doing this for over 30 years, and I've never seen it like this," Ms. Lassandro of Nassau County said. "Nobody's exempt from it."

Hear that, father-in-law of mine? Nobody.



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