Hmm.... An Editing Business... Hmm....

So I'm back from Germany, and looking around for a job, and after my rant on Facebook about the lack of basic punctuation and spelling on the web and elsewhere, it occurred to me that maybe I should hire myself out as an editor.  Okay, so everyone, even the best and most careful of writers, has a typo every now and again, and there are times we all say "damn you autocorrect!" 


But that's just my point:  everyone makes errors.  Some of them are slight; and some of them are horrible, disgusting, and degrading to the English language.  Okay, maybe not that bad, but still egregious.  I certainly make errors, and bad ones sometimes, because after hours of writing it becomes one big blur and I can't see the trees for the forest.  (Yes,  I meant to phrase it that way.)  However, I care about the quality of my writing enough to ask someone else to go over it, just in case I might have missed something.  Heck, even with more than a pair of eyes scanning the work, errors still get missed.  We're human.  It happens.


Some people don't care whether their prose comes off as being...hmm...less than good.  That's fine.  They wouldn't be my customers.  However, people who do care how they sound, look, and communicate would be, whether they write fiction or nonfiction.

My qualifications?  I've written eleven novels and four novellas for major U.S. publishing companies.  I've been a technical writer and editor over the course of fifteen years.  I've written and edited various documents in all the jobs I've held for close to thirty years.  I've edited and proofread academic papers, articles for medical journals, software documentation, structural and civil engineering documents, and environmental engineering documents and proposals and so on.


And I also know that depending on whether you go by Chicago Manual of Style, APA, or Gregg Reference,  whether you capitalize after a colon will differ.  :-)

As far as editing fiction writing goes, I've been in a critique group for longer than I've published.  I've been a judge in the national Romance Writers of America Rita contest, as well as a judge of various chapter contests.  I have also personally contacted certain contest entrants whose writing was superb and urged them to pursue publishing...and their works have become published.  I know good writing when I see it.  And I can tell you why it's good.


Most of all, I love writing.  I love the English language.  The art and craft of it is a passion for me.

Sigh....

Well, I must say when I first began writing this blog post I was feeling in a bit of a funk.  But now that I've written about the things I know and love, I have to say, I'm feeling pretty good about it.


So I think, I really do think, I might just pursue the idea of offering my editing and copy editing services as an independent contractor.  I'll see, I guess!