My call for questions brought in a couple of good ones. Some are questions about me, some are more particular questions about the editing business and how I handle specific situations. Please drop me a line via the contact me tab above, if you have a question or a comment.
A question I’m asked frequently is, “How did you become an editor?” This is almost as frequently followed up with “How do I become an editor?” I’ll address that in a future post, but today I thought I’d back up a little and start by answering a more basic question I received this week:
What made you interested in editing?
Three things, really, I think: A love of books, an eye for detail, and a sense of humor.
I learned to read at an early age, with parents who encouraged my education and raised me on a diet of science fiction, fantasy, and the classics. We had the leatherbound rune-inscribed edition of The Hobbit, and I remember getting a chapter a night at bedtime when I was very young. I remember that sometimes I was read to, but sometimes I would read it myself and just get help on the hard words. I grew up in a house full of books, and I grew up learning to love books and the flights of imagination they held.
My second year of high school, I spent a summer working in the school library for credit. Thereafter, I worked in the library every summer, and every day before class and at lunch, if I could. When I graduated, I got a summer job with the library system. I would work at one school cataloging new books, or I’d go to another school that was just automating their checkout system, doing inventory and barcoding old books.
When I first entered the workplace, I found myself with an aptitude for data analysis, and ended up working data analysis jobs across a number of industries. It was that attention to detail and the inherent knack for proofreading that made me successful at it. (That, and a lack of fear of Excel formulas!)
I’ve always been the sort to point out questionable wording or typos, or teasingly question the literal meanings of things. I’ve been spotting typos and photographing funny signs for a long time.
Eventually, I got the opportunity to work for a major publishing house. I wasn’t an editor, but I was responsible for catching errors in other people’s work, and in the corporate database as a whole. Like any muscle that strengthens with use, my existing aptitude was sharpened greatly. I learned to stop assuming that facts were correct just because they were in print. I learned to second guess what I saw, and how to research facts, and how to point out errors and request their correction in a tactful, professional way.
And I met editors. They were people just like me, doing a job very similar to mine, just on different kinds of files. And then I realized that I could be doing what they were doing. I had met people who spotted typos for profit, not just for fun; and with a little focus and training, I could be one of them. I love books, and the thought of getting involved in such a deep, hands-on sort of way with their creation was a very appealing one. So I set out to make it happen for myself.
How did I do that? Stay tuned, dear reader. That’s a topic for another post.
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