New year’s resolutions for editors and proofreaders

To usher in 2023, I’ve compiled 5 new year’s resolutions for editors and proofreaders at the blog of AFEPI Ireland – the Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers of Ireland.

I’ve always been wary of making new year’s resolutions, never taking them very seriously. So if you feel similarly, don’t be put off on that account. But I think they can be helpful if framed in a certain way, which I do in the opening paragraph.

Some suggestions are practical, addressing work habits and environment; others focus on our relationship to words and language, since this too is an important part of the work of editing and proofreading. Certain advice also applies to other trades.

It’s a short article, just over 800 words, and you can read it here.

Interview at Copyediting newsletter

I realise that my exciting career as a freelance writer and editor is of little interest to the world at large. But if you have a few minutes to kill and you take a notion, here is an informal Q&A I did with the good people at Copyediting newsletter.

Online editor Dawn McIlvain Stahl asked me about job satisfaction, the influence of science, who would play me in a Hollywood film, and other things. I’m told I make the lifestyle sound serene, and I guess I do, but only because (being a glass-quarter-full sort) I left out the stressful parts.

Copyediting have a whole series of these interviews with editors, which you’ll enjoy browsing if the subject interests you.