Hello, everybody!

In my last post, I told of how I got an unexpected editing gig when the church I attend had me edit the descriptions of its spring small groups, which will be held via Zoom. The descriptions went up on the church’s website later in the week.

Right after I completed the job, one of our pastors approached me with another unexpected editing gig–editing a Bible study leader’s booklet which she is writing herself from scratch. 🙂 She is sending it to me lesson by lesson (there are nine of them), and when I finish editing the whole booklet, I will be paid.

Last Friday, a graduate student at a well-known research university reached out to me via email and asked if I would edit a master’s thesis. 🙂 I agreed to, and the student will send it to me later this week. Ah, but there was only one problem: Since I am unfamiliar with common first names in the student’s native country, I could not tell whether this person was a man or a woman. Not that it really matters, but I like to get a mental picture of each of my clients just for my own personal comfort.

What to do?

I turned to Google and searched the student’s first name. Google found me a website that told me that 96 percent of all people with that first name who were born in the last century are female. So I can be 96 percent certain that the student is a woman.

Hooray for Google!

It certainly beats sending someone an email that asks, “By the way, are you a man or a woman?”

In my previous post, I told about how my most faithful client, the church which my husband and I attend, had to cancel several events and activities due to the COVID-19 crisis, and how that meant a financial loss for me since I was scheduled to edit booklets and material for those events and activities.

WAAAAAAH!

Ah, but wait. Thanks to modern technology, the church is hosting its spring semester small groups (one of the activities for which I was to edit a booklet) online via Zoom. That means that the church staff is getting ready to roll out a page on the church’s website detailing the various Zoom groups and the topics on which they are focusing.

Guess who edited the material for that web page today? 🙂

All is not lost. Hope springs eternal.

COVID-19 is hurting everybody in the world. Freelance editors like me are no exception.

Although I have been fortunate enough not to get sick thus far, my editing business has begun to feel the pain. My most faithful client, the church that my husband and I attend, has had to cancel all of its activities due to state law–activities for which I was to edit booklets and other material. The booklets and other material were never produced due to the shutdown.

I often contact the biochemistry departments of different research universities to offer my services to their graduate students who are writing their theses or dissertations. Nowadays the graduate program directors and department heads whom I contact have other things to worry about, of course.

So what do I do?

I keep in touch with the small number of clients that I do have. I write to them and ask them if they are healthy and well. They seem to appreciate it and often ask me the same thing. This is a small way of having them remember me, as well as a way of expressing my concern for their well-being.

And…I keep the faith.

This question was, I believe, a recent writing prompt from NAIWE.

One of the lies that I tell myself the most often is, “YOU’RE STUPID.”

I tell myself this when I cannot figure out my phone, when I can’t figure out something on the computer, when I inadvertently do something that hurts someone…the list goes on and on.

I know that I am not stupid. I have a master’s degree in biochemistry. I can read and write well. I can balance my checkbook.

I do stupid things once in a while. Everybody does. Right?

I believe that it’s important to separate the action from the person. A smart person can do something stupid. This does not mean the person is stupid. The action is.

People really need to watch what they say. Don’t call a person stupid when they do something stupid. It is very hurtful to be called stupid.

So why do I keep hurting myself by calling myself stupid?

Hello, everybody!

My name is Suzelle Fiedler and I am new to NAIWE. I have been a freelance editor since the fall of 2018.

My background is in biochemistry, of all things. I have a master’s degree in this subject, which I obtained in 1998. I worked in research labs for years before my physical limitations began preventing me from performing the increasingly technological experiments.

So why did I become an editor? When I was writing my master’s thesis, I realized that the writing was actually my favorite part of my whole project. I have always loved to write as much I’ve always loved science. Editing, I found, was even more fun because I got to read interesting material as well as rewrite and correct it.

When I’m not editing, I love to travel (although our current Coronavirus crisis will preclude my doing that for a while). I love the Canadian province of Quebec, since it is my mother’s homeland, and I am a lifelong frequenter of the Jersey beaches. I currently reside in Frederick, Maryland with my husband.

Welcome, new member, to your very own site on NAIWE.com. This is your first post on your new blog. We suggest you introduce yourself on this page. This post can be used to orient readers to who you are and what you do in a more conversational style than the Professional Profile page where you will most likely post a résumé or CV.

How to log in

To edit this post, log in to your blog dashboard using the username and password you chose when you joined. To log in, look for the “Meta” heading in the right column of this page, and click on “Log in.” The screenshot at left will show you what you will see if you are already logged in.

After you log in

Once you have logged in to you , look up at the black bar at the top of your screen. You should see “Edit Post” (screenshot below).

If you click on “Edit Post” on any page of your site, you will be taken to the editing screen where you can change the text, add images (through the “Add Media” button, and more.

In the editing view, the left sidebar of the dashboard will have links to each area of your new site. At left is a screenshot of the selections in the dashboard menu.

The sections you will find most immediately useful are circled in red in the illustration at left.

• Posts is what you select if you want to see a list of all existing posts or create a new post.
• Pages is what you select to see a list of pages or create a new page.
• Settings offers several sections with a variety of choices that can be made. The new Customize function (accessed through the top bar) is a simpler way of working with most settings, including site name, colors, and more.

Your website comes with most settings optimized, so you shouldn’t have to do much in here. If you’ve not worked with a WordPress site before, it is probably best to leave things as they are until you are more confident in working with the system

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Save your changes

When you have changed the text of the post, be sure to remember to change the title as well, then click the “Update” button in the right column to save your changes.

Once you have a new blog post up, you may change this post to draft status so that it no longer shows.

You will find detailed, up-to-date instructions for how to work with your new website at WordPress Codex.

If you have questions, contact us at support@naiwe.com.