Nobody wants to hear, “What you are doing is highly unprofessional,” or any variation of this statement–especially when they are running their own business. After all, we freelance editors are professionals, and so we must act like professionals.

When I interact with clients, my emails are very professionally written. I am cordial and friendly, but not all buddy-buddy with them. I do my best to have a professional demeanor with them and also in the few classes I have taken as a freelance editor. I sign all of my emails “Best regards, Suzelle M. Fiedler.”

Now I have a small dilemma. I have a client who is also a good friend of mine from high school.

She and I have, over the last thirty years, gone to silly movies and pop-star concerts together, hung out and talked for hours about everything under the sun, and played arcade games and pinball together. She is lots of fun…and now I find myself in a business relationship with her.

So I must adapt.

In my emails to her about her project, I am friendly and cordial, but I am also careful not to sound too friendly. That means I do not insert phrases in my emails such as “Pretty cool, huh?” or “LOL.” After all, she and I are not seventeen anymore. I even sign my project-related emails to her as “Best regards, Suzelle M. Fiedler.” I haven’t heard any complaints from her about this.

There is, however, one thing I do with my friend that may seem unprofessional to some.

When I go over something she wrote on the website we are working on and I see that she has made corrections, I type a smiley emoji on the document on which I list corrections that need to be made. For me, it’s a way to give her a pat on the back for doing a good job correcting what I previously pointed out on the website. It’s a friendly gesture.

Too friendly? For someone I have known and been friends with for thirty years, I don’t think so. However, I would not do this with a client whom I did not know personally. That would risk the client thinking I am silly and…you guessed it…unprofessional.

If you, dear reader, have a client who is also a good friend, how do you draw the line between friendship and professionalism?

 

I am about to finish Advanced Copyediting, a course I am taking through one of the other professional organizations of which I am a member (Editorial Freelancers Association). “Why are you taking this four-week-long, asynchronous online class?” you might be thinking. “You are already a copyeditor!”

There are a number of reasons why.

First and foremost, I want to improve myself and my skills. My skills are already excellent (if I do say so myself), but one should never be complacent and stop improving them. In this class, I have learned quite a bit. I learned about voice in writing, for example. I also learned about what do when an author plagiarizes and about copyright infringement, and I learned about contracts for clients and (through the discussion forums) what do about setting and raising my rates. There was a lot more that I learned in Advanced Copyediting, but I don’t have time to go through it all in this post. When the class is offered again, you can go to “Active Courses” at www.the-efa.org to see everything that it will teach you.

Second, the class has discussion forums, and I love interacting with other students from literally all over the world (freelancing, though I love it, can be isolating). We discuss all things literally, with our teacher initiating the conversations with prompts. Our teacher also regularly interacts with us in the forums.

Third, the assignments, though challenging, are fun. We edited four chapters of a memoir. Since I love editing, I liked doing it, even though it took a considerable amount of time and hard work.

I finished the last assignment yesterday and the class officially ends on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to getting my certificate of completion so I can display it proudly on my bulletin board.

Dear reader, have you ever taken such a class? What was your experience like?

It’s always difficult to say goodbye to longtime friends…or pro bono clients. Today, however, I did just that.

I edited pro bono for a local nonprofit organization for a total of seven years–five years before I started my editing business. Editing for this organization gave me valuable practice and a way to hone my skills. I believed, and still believe, strongly in its mission, and I loved the people there, and that was part of what kept me editing their website once a month without pay for seven years. The organization was deserving of my services.

Eventually, however, I began netting paid editing gigs, and over the last two and a half years since I started my business, I have amassed enough of them to watch them squeeze out the time I have to devote to the pro bono work. It became clear about a month ago that I would have to let the unpaid editing go. But how would I say goodbye to the organization? Would I leave it “high and dry” without an editor for its website?

Of course not.

I reached out to one of my editing organizations and found a gem who desired to do more pro bono work in order to gain more experience. She was interested in taking over for me, and so I gave her the URL of the organization’s website and explained what I had been doing and how I had been doing it.

Following this, I contacted the organization and told its administration about the potential new editor and why I needed to let their work go. They understood, okayed everything, and I introduced the organization to its new website editor over email.

Today, I did the pro bono work for the organization for the last time before handing the reins to the new editor. I am confident that she is highly capable and competent and will do a great job for the organization.

I want to emphasize that it was not easy to do any of this, nor was it comfortable for me. But, as they say, sometimes one has to leave one’s comfort zone in order for the best situation to take place.

Fighting ableism (prejudice against those with disabilities) has always been very important to me, since I have a mild form of cerebral palsy. When I worked in the scientific laboratory, I encountered ableism on a regular basis. “Walk faster! Don’t lag behind!” “Your handwriting is too messy!” “You need to learn to operate that device–I’m not going to hold your hand!” (I will refrain from saying the name of the place where the people who said such things will eventually end up.)

I often tried to explain to my bosses in the laboratory (the ones who didn’t understand) that I had mild cerebral palsy, but my words frequently fell on ears that were unwilling to hear.

Now that I am an editor, I try to fight ableism wherever and whenever I can in my work. The first thing I did was (actually recently) make the font on my website more legible.

The second thing I did was change my attitude toward poor writing. That means no more laughing silently at an author when he or she uses “your” in place of “you’re” or writes a run-on sentence or fragment. For all I know, the author may have struggled with writing in school or all during his or her life. And that has to hurt.

I have to be especially careful with ESL authors when I read their sometimes poor English writing. This means constantly reminding myself that the author’s English is much better than my Mandarin/Russian/Spanish/whichever is his or her native language. If that doesn’t humble an editor, what can?

What are your thoughts on ableism?

What kinds of sentences should not be?

Why, fragments and run-ons, of course. They are pet peeves of mine.

Run-ons, also called comma splices, happen when two sentences are incorrectly joined by a comma.

Example: I enjoy writing, I also enjoy editing.

What can we do to fix this? We can either break the sentence into two complete sentences…

I enjoy writing. I also enjoy editing.

…or separate the two sentences with a semicolon instead of a comma:

I enjoy writing; I also enjoy editing.

Be careful with the semicolon, however. Don’t use it unless each part on either side of it could stand alone as a complete sentence.

Fragments, or sentence fragments, are kind of the opposite of run-ons. They are incomplete sentences that are made to stand alone.

Example: I am an editor. As well as a writer.

The phrase in bold above is a fragment. It contains a subject (writer) but no verb. It cannot and should not stand alone.

How do we fix this? Join the fragment (with a comma) to the previous sentence (make sure the latter is a complete sentence), such as:

I am an editor, as well as a writer.

As an editor, I fix run-ons and fragments frequently. Hopefully this lesson that I just presented is a helpful one.

Fellow editors, what are some of your biggest pet peeves in writing?

 

Back when I was on Facebook, I was scrolling through my feed one day when I encountered a meme that I found hilarious. It read:

I can’t stand people who can’t tell the difference between “your” and “you’re.” There so stupid. [sic]

Since I love to write and love to edit even more, I could relate to the idea of cringing when writers confuse these homonyms. I took this meme as a lighthearted, funny jab at poor writing, so what did I do? Reposted it, of course.

The next morning, I was again scrolling through Facebook (see what a time-waster that platform is?) and navigated to my own Facebook page. There stood that meme, now adorned by a comment from one of my friends: That’s not nice.

“Well,” thought I, “aren’t we overly sensitive.”

About a month or so later, I met a friend in a public place and we began talking about our educational experiences. It turned out that my friend had struggled a great deal with writing when she was in school. I knew full well that she was not stupid. She just had a hard time writing.

You guessed it…she was the friend who had commented that the meme on my page was not nice. I suddenly understood why she had been offended. I had indirectly called her “so stupid.”

I was humbled. Just because I am good at writing (and frankly, I don’t think I am that good at it compared to many of the others in NAIWE) doesn’t mean it comes easily to everybody. This points back to a post I made months ago, “No Snobbishness Allowed.” We editors need to be sensitive to the feelings of our clients, even if (and especially if) they don’t write well.

I have since left Facebook and deleted my presence from it, but this incident stayed with me and serves as a reminder to me not to be an editing snob.

On your bulletin board, of course!

Every freelancer’s office needs at least one bulletin board. My dear hubby mounted my bulletin board for me on the wall above my work desk, and it is precious to me.

What should every freelance editor have on their bulletin board?

Sources of encouragement. I have two very positive comments from clients on my board; I cut them out of email printouts. As many restaurants pin their first dollar to their wall, so these comments serve as encouragement and affirmation to me.

Credentials. On my board is pinned a certificate of completion from the Intermediate Copyediting class I took back in the fall (for the record, I am taking the Advanced class beginning at the end of this month).

Important lists. These may or may not, in my opinion, be related to one’s work (although some may say that everything on a bulletin board should be related to work). I have a couple of lists that have more to do with my personal life but are on the board for one reason: so I do not lose them.

Weekly time reports, if one uses a timekeeping program like Toggl (the one I prefer). Then, at the end of the month, I simply take them off the board and use them to write up monthly invoices, after which time they get filed.

At least one thing that is colorful. One of my dear friends sent me a postcard a little while back that had a drawing of a rainbow on it and the words “Better Days Ahead.” Definitely a good thing to have around during such horrific times as these in our world. It’s also inspiring and encouraging to look up from my chair and see it.

What do you have on your bulletin board, if you have one?

I don’t like being thought of as a wagon, but I do like to think of myself as a welcoming person.

When a new person or family moves into the apartment building where my hubby and I live, I like to go to their place during the move and introduce myself. I believe this makes their transition to their new life in our building easier.

Similarly, when an editors’ organization to which I belong releases a list of people who joined the association during the past month, I like to go through it and contact those who live in my home state to welcome them to the organization. I also tell them a little about myself and my editing business while asking them what they do (if I cannot find out from their organizational profile).

Why only those who live in my home state? There are always way too many people on the list to contact every single one of them. The exception I make is that I will contact people who live in or near a certain major city next to my state, since my adopted hometown is a bedroom community of this city.

I also refrain from contacting men or those who identify as male. Doing this, in my opinion, can make things complicated (if you know what I mean), since I am a woman.

Some people choose to remain silent and that is okay; I respect people’s desire to remain private. Others write back and are very friendly and appreciative that I took the time to welcome them. Thus often begins a “pen pal” friendship. I have even subsequently spoken on the phone with other editors.

Do you like to welcome other authors and/or editors? What has that experience been like for you?

As your editing business grows, your record-keeping should evolve.

What I mean by that is that your bookkeeping should become more organized, clearer, and (gasp!) more technological (read: MS Excel).

In the months leading up to the official launch of my editing business, I carried around a notebook and kept records in it of my earnings and expenses. I wrote down (by hand) every project I finished, for whom, and the amount, placing a check mark next to the amount when it actually went into my bank account. I also used the pages on the opposite site to document my expenses. Primitive, eh?

A month or two into my business, I began creating Excel spreadsheets to keep records instead of hand-writing everything into a notebook. Back in 2014 I had taken a short course in Excel at the local community college, and what I learned slowly came back to me. I now organize the year into quarters and manage my earnings and expenses, letting the program do the math for me. At the end of the year, Excel tells me whether I posted a profit or a loss. (I am happy to say that I have posted profits for the last two years in a row–and the only year in which I had a loss was the year I launched my business.)

So what else is Excel useful for? I use it to keep a record of my clients, when was the last time I edited for them, when was the last time I contacted them, and their email addresses. I also use it to keep the contact info of every person to whom I have sent a cold or warm email.

If you are an editor, what do you use to keep your records?

Well, it is that time of year again…TAX TIME! Don’t you just love it? I am at least grateful that it falls in the dead of winter and early spring, rather than in the late spring or summer when the weather is good for being out and doing fun things. I would hate to have to do my taxes in July, when I would rather be at a pool or barbeque (pre-pandemic, of course).

My husband and I typically designate a Saturday in February or March to work on our taxes. Since I am self-employed and own a business, my part of the ordeal is to work on Schedule C, Schedule SE, and Schedule 1. All of these have to do with income and/or expenses which one had in one’s business for the year.

Once these three schedules are done and the numbers plugged into Form 1040, we are done, right? WRONG!

There is also the Maryland state return (based on the federal one) and, my favorite, the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation (DAT) forms. The latter have nothing to do with income taxes, but they are the biggest pain in the keister. They have to do with reporting your business’s gross sales (not difficult) and how much personal property the business owns and what the property is worth (difficult).

My most important piece of advice to a freelancer who is just starting out: Keep good records.

Don’t throw out those bank statements or receipts; if you are audited, you will have to show what you spent and on what. If you get bank statements online through email, don’t delete them. And learn basic Excel and make spreadsheets of your income (line by line) and expenses (also line by line). Making spreadsheets can actually be kind of fun if you color-code different lines or cells.

I wish you the best. Don’t worry…eventually you will finish all of your forms. Then sit back and relax with a nice mug of hot chocolate.