Just contacted a small press to see if they’re hiring freelancers, and the answer is yes! Right now I am booked through August, but I hope this press will have something for me. For all of March I’d stupidly taken a break from freelance work in order to try my hand at a March writing [...]
Have agreed to proofread a new novel by the writer I’d vowed to forever avoid, ever since I’d proofread one of his myriad novels in a series years ago.
I need the money.
Maybe I’m wrong to have disliked his other novel so much. Maybe I’m just not his audience, not when review after review of the [...]
Working on a 900-plus-page novel at the office, and my proofreader has queried every instance of a comma-less “too”—i.e., “He laughed too,” as opposed to “He laughed, too.”
It depends on the style the author prefers, of course, plus my boss once instructed me not to globally add or remove such commas, as it really depends [...]
The accountant asked me: “Do you travel?”
“No.”
“Never?”
I was embarrassed. “I’m visiting my brother in L.A. next month.”
“Let’s say instead that you’re going to a writers’ gathering in May—and while you’re there, hey why not see your brother?”
A writer’s accountant, this. My first.
I showed him one receipt. It was a donation (this my first too) to [...]
After nearly a month and a half of no proofreading due to another self-imposed writing spree, I sent out a query to my contacts about upcoming jobs. Sadly, not much fiction is being done right now (or perhaps my contacts are shunning me!), but one contact finally proposed a novel. I don’t have the luxury [...]
When J asked me the other day what I would consider to be the perfect final meal, I found it both a simple and a challenging question—simple in that I don’t require fireworks on the plate to be impressed, as one’s final meal should just be one’s favorite food cooked to perfection, but difficult in [...]
Oh fuck (scuse my French)—while I’ve been writing like a NaNoWri mofo, deadlines have sailed past me left and right, and I just realized that another one has been missed. I hope the lady who hired me isn’t too pissed, especially as I already have a history of being late with her.* I hope I [...]
G’s brilliant explanation to her students regarding the appropriate choice of commas or em-dashes to set off a clause. Move over, Strunk & White.
Random line I wrote down on the same page: For God’s sake, darlin’, don’t do it!
I had coffee and banana muffins with my mother in a Chinese bakery, where we sat before rows of birthday cakes of pastel yellow and pink, some shaped as pigs, some as blowfish, some as bears, and all with large Disney eyes and shiny bits of fruit clustered atop the heads to indicate hair, and [...]
Called a freelancer today to see if she could proofread a graphic novel for me. I usually use e-mail to correspond with freelancers, but for some reason this morning (probably due to cool sunshine after big rain last night) was feeling a little gregarious, so used phone. And as I was describing job, silence from her. So [...]
I’ve got 100 pages to go on a proofreading job that was due last Friday—bad, w., very bad.
One of my freelancers once turned in a job two weeks late without explanation. I try not to hire him now unless I’m desperate.
So at work bright and early this morning, and my supervisor passed by my door with another jaunty greeting, [...]
Had lent a favorite book to a friend in grad school and never asked for it back. She had not read this Chinese writer yet, who at the time had become popular in America with a grand and romantic novel about thwarted love. It is a good novel, but I always point people to his [...]
Yesterday morning, wrote brief summary of what I’d learned from most recent proofreading job, a novella and stories set in West Africa. Had a slight issue with POV, though am not well read enough to fully comprehend or explain own criticism—white guy being taught by Africans about meaning of Africa, what it means to be African, that [...]
My current proofreading job is 400+ pages of a poet’s collected long works, six of them, and I am befuddled to the max. I know tomorrow kicks off a month of celebrating poetry, but come on: Why are there nouns and verbs that normally have nothing to do with each other appearing in the same [...]
Was in the long line at Starbucks this morning, because my regular coffee shop is closed for renovation due to health violations, and read only one page of the current (and abhored) proofreading project. Only one page! Can’t figure out if I was reading too slowly, which I don’t think is the case, as I want [...]
A loud solitude occurs at one o'clock in the morning.
E-mail me: loudsolitude (at) gmail (dot) com.
Surprise me: Amazon wish list.
