Learning as a Rule

I think the best thing I have done for my business is committing to classwork. For all the knowledge I have brought with me over the years, there is always something to be refreshed, to be picked up new, to be viewed in a new way.

Included in the term 'classwork', as I use it here, I include a variety of things I do in a week to keep my editing muscles buffed. That means reading - a lot - not just text and reference books for class, but professional group discussions, blog articles, and job descriptions from employment postings. I've learned some great things in the ten minutes I spend slogging through email in the morning.

For example, did you know that using two spaces behind a period is a TYPING thing? As in using an 'old-fashioned' typewriter - the kind we used when we old folks were in school twenty (or so) years ago? Just you try to break that habit if you have it. It's my new proofing exercise - I have to go back in work like this post to get rid of the extra spaces. It was only important for that machine -- related to the typesetting process -- and is not relevant now with software that adjusts spacing automatically.

That little tidbit made me a better proofreader. I'm quite grateful for a lot of people I don't even know, that they share this kind of free information in blogs and groups. I'm grateful for my instructor, who I also don't know because I'm taking a class online, who walks me through these big reference books and gives me great inside hints and tips along the way. Her knowledge makes me a better editor.

Very much enjoying freelancing and all the learning that will always to go with it!

Ahhhh...A Brand New Year

The holidays were restful for me.  I took a break from delving into the world of editing, looked at some other opportunities that presented themselves, and have a new calendar to fill.

Some folks make resolutions this time of year.  I find it feels more like setting down old baggage, like cleaning up, than beginning something new or going back to some old devotion.  The old devotions pick up a lot of schmutz sometimes in the course of life.  This year I've washed off the schmutz, those ideas that collect over time and mess up the core of my goals.  The challenge is to avoid picking up the old crap and to keep things cleaner farther into the year.

I think my whole theme now is balance.  It's not automatic that today's projects are in clear focus alongside needs connected with my family and my friends.  It takes a bit of refreshment each day to keep that in balance, a bit of this New Year thinking.  It's like a little recipe - a pinch of looking back, a dash of looking ahead, mixed into a large bowl of everyday mundane.  Spice with imagination and creativity, marinate in love, and serve with smile garnish.  Eat with your hands, use the fine china once in a while, and don't avoid the occasional food fight.  Life is messy, clean it up.  Repeat.

Soon I will make a rate guide available from this blog.  It will help me outline the ways I may be able to help you, and I hope it will encourage you to contact me if you are considering reaching out for help with a writing project.  Just think - you could become part of my theme!

Happy New Year!

Working it Out

A new project is always a little scary in spots.  Haven't you ever gotten a great idea, acted on it, and then wondered what the heck you were thinking?  Even before anything bad happened?

So it is some days with freelancing.  Several things have helped me power through the mental brownouts.  I have done some reading, which always gets the juices going.  Not only have I read about freelancing, contracts, getting assignments, and managing the books, but I have taken the time to be in touch with my personal center as well.  I don't know why I need to be reminded that I am more than my thoughts, but I always feel better when I step back and look at the big big picture.

So I'm still looking for opportunities that don't require 2 years experience and job titles I don't have.  It's all good.  I'll be meeting people soon.  I have my business cards ready, I'm learning the program I'll use for invoices, and the sun is still coming up in the morning on my warm bed.

What was one way you powered through the scary days?

Welcome to CorinnaCopyedits!

I'm excited to be exploring a career in freelance copy-editing!  I'm happy to have you visit.

With this first post, I would like to introduce myself to you.  I am a forty-something mom of two, lover of one who resides in the magnificent state of Montana.  For all but the last two of those forty-odd years I lived in the charismatic little town of Big Sandy, hidden away between Great Falls and Havre, dangerously close to Canada.  (It's only dangerous because the wind blows pretty much unhindered across that great country before it slams into the Hi Line fresh from the North Pole in the winter.  One can freeze quite quickly if not appropriately prepared.)  It was a wonderful life, mostly, but one or two of the last rough patches led me away from home.  I look back from my happy present with fond memories and forward with a fresh outlook.  It's all good.

Growing up and making a home in a rather remote community of about 450 people (it was closer to 600 when I was a kid) gave me unique insight into serving others and hard work.  I built and ran a small greenhouse when I was 14, and mom and I enjoyed that for over 20 years.  I was offered a job at the local lumber yard when I was 14, too, so with school and the plants I was busy all the time.  I got married the week before I graduated from college with my Associate's Degree in Business Administration, worked another few years at the lumber yard,  a little in the winter at my grandfather's CPA office preparing taxes, and filled in the quiet times for a few years after my daughter was born with an afternoon shift at the local dry goods store.  Somewhere in there I drove truck for a customer harvest crew, taught Sunday School, and produced the weekly parish bulletin at St. Margaret Mary's.  My son was born in the mid-nineties, and when he started school I worked at the local newspaper for a year.  I dabbled in scented oils and dried flowers, selling my wares alongside the bedding plants in season.  All the while I lived in the rural areas around Big Sandy, helping on first my parent's and then the in-law's farms.

Shucks, that sounds just exhausting.  Sometimes it was.  It was also rewarding and edifying, and it made me who I am today.

Well, that and the mail routes I drove as a sub for fifteen years, the local car wash we bought, and then the lumber yard that I eventually bought from my first boss and successfully ran for four years.  Then it got seriously exhausting, excruciatingly complicated, and things rather came undone.  The rest is the subject of a book that can't be published until after I'm dead, or at least until some of the real-life characters have passed on.  But you can still shop at the lumber yard - my sister runs it now.

Within all of that is the humus that my love of reading, writing, and editing grew in.  It shows up clearly in my long strange list of occupations once or twice.  I have sharpened my skills in the past couple of years working with a great start-up, MACK Productions, Inc, a Billings event planner. I met lots of great people setting up Family Life Expo events and the related websites and Facebook pages. The great gals there helped me sharpen my digital skills and creativity, and I'll never forget them (because they're still on speed-dial!). So I'll start again, building a portfolio as I go, trying not to forget that what I can do with words does not feel so natural to everyone.  

Until next time,
Corinna