(no subject)

[serene]

I'm so glad for friends who just let me be (not in the "leave me alone" sense, but the "let me just exist as I am" sense). I just wanted to sit and be tonight, and no one pestered me about how I wasn't crafting or conversing most of the time. I really love my friends.

Thanks, mackenzie, wild_irises, and firecat. You rock.

Oh, and I did make a cute necklace after wild_irises and firecat left. It looks like it belongs on a twelve-year-old hippy, so it's perfect for me.

Tomorrow is for collapsing. I need a collapsing day. I shall look for work extra-hard tonight and then again tomorrow when I'm done with the nothingness of collapsitude.

And in case I haven't already said it here, if you know of any place in the east bay where my 20+ years of admin/clerical work and 8 years of copyediting and document QA would come in handy, please give me a holler.

Comments

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

A ciyoke if questions: Are you a member of any local editing organization chapters? Several Toronto editor friends of mine belong to the Toronto chapter of the EAC (Editor's Association of Canada) and swear by it's courses and networking opportunities.

In my graphic design job search/launch of a freelance career, I'm also having to learn the networking mantra _and_ finish off my local professional assoc. qualification. Have also joined up with local print buyer's association and am doing a course there. Is there something similar for editors?

And last but not least: Are you working up any new sample material and does it also need to be enhanced in a design way (real volunteer projects are good) I'm also kicking tires for things to take and enhance the visuals (hint, hint! :)

Wanna work together? I'm tossing together a sniggler cooking leaflet. It could be gorgeous! And edited!

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the first few words. That's what happens when typing in a dark room with sandy eyes and insufficient coffee.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I'm in the process for joining Editcetera (http://www.editcetera.com/), and I shall look around for other organizations. I'm also planning to take UC Berkeley's three-course copyediting program, but it's costly, so it'll have to be a save-up-for thing.

I'm gonna look up the other stuff you mentioned. Thanks!

Mostly for sample material, I'm using links to sites I've written and/or edited, such as http://www.4thebest.com/ and http://www.kmasc.com . I'm not sure I have the time and energy to make up a project just for marketing, unless it really seems to be necessary. What do you think?

And yeah, I'd be glad to help with the sniggler thing, though I'd have to leave the gorgeous to you. I'm intensely bad at visual design stuff.

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

Is the editing work you've done a good example of the future editing work you want to land? If so, then let it stand. OTOH, if you want to pursue work in specialized areas for which you _don't_ have samples, then you need to either make something up or find those projects to work on. For instance, medical editing, scientific editing, pharmacologeoical (sic) editing, tecnical//engineering editing, user manual writing/useability testing/editing, cookbook or instructional editing. All require finely nuanced vocabulary or knowledge backgrounds.

The french/english translator from my last retail flyer gig went on to be part of a eight language pharmacological translation unitin suburban Toronto. She spoke French, but she had about a year's worth of learning each language's medical and pharmacological vocabularies in front of her before she would be highly skilled. There is the same available on the editing front. IIRC, Genome Kelly's faculty (Public Health) at UAB keeps a scientific editor employed full-time polishing their research grant applications and other materials.

I'll let you know when the recipe booklet is ready for an editing pass. I'm waiting on last year's recipes from Lynnette. In Word, I'm making it as consistent as possible, applying stylesheets and am experimenting with the index tagging and ToC functions. I want to see how well these are preserved when pulled into InDesign, my page layout program at home.