One of my nemeses in writing and editing is the issue of how to write expressions of time.

For example, which is correct: “2:00 pm”, “2:00 p.m.”, “2:00 PM”, or “2:00 P.M.”? Capitals or lowercase? Periods or no periods?

It’s enough to drive an editor batty.

The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (9.37) and The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association assert that it should be lowercased with periods (2:00 p.m.), probably because the abbreviations p.m. and a.m. stand for post meridiem and ante meridiem, respectively.

However, Scientific Style and Format (CSE) states that the abbreviations should be in capital letters without periods (2:00 PM).

AARGH!

However you write it, what is most important is to consistently follow the style guide you are using. Please don’t write 2:00 p.m. on one page and 2:00 PM on another, for example. That is my golden rule.

Now then, please also remember that 12:00 a.m. is midnight, and 12:00 pm is noon.

Fellow editors, how do you prefer to write expressions of time?

At the end of each month, NAIWE asks all of its members what they accomplished that month and invites them to post their accomplishments on their discussion board. I thought, Why not also blog about them?

My biggest thing to brag about in January is that I landed a gig that will keep me busy until (I believe) early summer. I am editing the website of a company for which a good friend of mine works. I may have mentioned this before, but please don’t mind if I do so again, because this gig is very precious and important to me. The website contains a ton of pages and I am working on editing every one of them. Tedious? Yes. But it is paying me more than I have ever made freelancing. I edited print catalogs for this same company last fall and the fall before, and the staff there have given me glowing testimonials for my website and LinkedIn recommendations. So it makes me feel very good, needless to say.

A little thing to brag about is that I improved the quality of the Excel spreadsheets that I make to keep track of my money. I discovered that I can keep track of earnings and expenses in the same workbook (by using different sheets in the workbook) rather than making a separate workbook each for earnings and expenses. I am using additional columns for the completion date, invoice date, and date paid for each project instead of listing only the completion date. And of course, I continue to add a little bit of color to each sheet (mostly green for earnings and pink for expenses). When I started my business two years ago, I knew Excel a little bit but had never made my own spreadsheet from scratch. I learn more every year.

Finally, (drum roll) I turned a small profit in January.

Let’s keep that up!

Onward and upward.

Ah yes. Social media. How do I use it?

For the most part, I don’t use it…at least not very much.

I was active on Facebook for almost nine years–from November 2008 to October 2017. Then, on October 5, 2017, shortly after the Las Vegas massacre, I deleted my profile. I didn’t just deactivate my profile; I deleted it and walked away from Facebook for good.

“But Facebook can be such a good tool to use to promote your business and network,” you say?

It is also a very dangerous tool, much like a circular saw. Like the circular saw, Facebook can be incredibly useful. However, also like the saw, it can hurt–very deeply.

I have been deeply hurt on Facebook by folks both known and unknown to me. I have lost friends due to Facebook posts. I have lost potential friends due to Facebook posts. I have connected on Facebook with people I really liked, only to read their posts and begin to dislike them. I know people who have had their families literally destroyed by Facebook.

What about Twitter? Yawn.

Instagram? Never used it; not interested. Snapchat? Never used it and never will because it looks so stupid.

The only social media site I use these days is LinkedIn. It took me years to learn how to create a good profile, but I am building quite a network over there. Some may say that LinkedIn is only akin to collecting baseball cards, but I know of other editors who have gotten a lot of work through it. And so I update my profile regularly and spend some time on the site every week, posting articles and parts of this blog and making sure to comment (intelligently) on other people’s posts (not every single post I come across, but the ones about which I can say something of value). If you are on LinkedIn, why not go over there now and search for my profile? Leave a comment as well; I would love to hear from you.

 

NAIWE writing prompt: What looks to be your big project of the week?

Well, I’m glad you asked, because I’ve actually got two big projects this week.

One is a copyedit of a scientific grant proposal. Grant proposals are top secret, so I will say no more about this one other than that its subject matter is very interesting.

The other is a copyedit and proofread of a company website. Last fall I proofread three consumer catalogs for this company and they were so happy with my work that they decided to have me do their website. Their website is beautiful but has a ton of pages, so the process is very time consuming. However, I am learning a lot about this company’s products. I am even starting to want to buy a few of them.

These two projects are keeping me very busy; in fact, the company website project has no hard deadline and will most likely occupy my time until June. But when you are a freelance editor, you live for times like these. Busyness is pure gold!

 

NAIWE prompt: Write about something in your life that is “worth it.”

I’m actually not about to write about something that’s “worth it,” but someone who is.

That would be my husband.

It’s long been my belief that in a marriage, a husband and a wife should each look for ways to serve the other. Now, by “serve,” I don’t mean giving them breakfast in bed every morning or doing every ounce of the housework so that they can watch football on TV. What I mean is that a husband and a wife should do things for each other mutually and be ready to step up when the other is in need.

For example, some nights I cook dinner and other nights my husband cooks dinner. The person who does not cook the meal washes the dishes afterwards.

Sometimes I empty the dishwasher and sometimes my husband does. Sometimes he takes the trash out and sometimes I do. Sometimes he goes grocery shopping and sometimes I do. And every Saturday morning, we both clean the condo.

Now, I absolutely hate grocery shopping. I don’t like cleaning the bathroom (with the exception of the fact that I get to listen to music while I do it) or washing dishes. I see cooking as more of a chore than anything else, and vacuuming frightens me (ever see Mr. Mom?). So why do I do these things?

Because my husband is worth it. His comfort and happiness are worth it.

And I know I am worth it to him.

(If you are judging by this post that my husband and I live like a kid-free version of The Waltons, please stop. Like every other married couple, we occasionally have spats and annoy each other. But he is worth getting over–and not dwelling on–those nasty moments.)

 

NAIWE prompt: Write a story on your NAIWE blog about the holidays. At the end of your post, note the subject of the most complicated sentence you wrote.

The week before Christmas (a Friday this year), I was elated.

I was looking forward to exchanging gifts with my family, spending time with my husband, indulging in some tourtiere and other great food, and not working for a few days.

Christmas Eve Day, my husband and I had both taken the day off, and we celebrated with a noontime meal of pizza. The pizza made me sleepy, so in the afternoon I took a nap–a long nap. Just before I woke up, I found myself dreaming of someone I had met only once. She was the only daughter of a gentleman and his wife whom my husband and I knew from church. The gentleman, who was good friends with my husband, had passed away a year ago, and we had attended his funeral and met his adult daughter there. Through her tears, she managed to be very nice and to smile, but my fashionista, judgmental self could not help but to be inwardly critical of her for wearing open-toed shoes with pantyhose.

This young woman showed up at the end of my dream, coupled with a techno song which I know from the dance mixes that I use to work out to. I dislike that particular song due to its foul language and drug references, and the song had nothing to do with the woman, but there they were together as I woke up. And I found this very creepy.

Christmas Day was very pleasant at my parents’ condo and found us exchanging gifts, eating, and having nice conversations.

The next day was anything but pleasant. My husband and I went to Walmart to use gift cards that we had received, and found crowds aplenty and technical difficulties using one of the gift cards. In the afternoon, my husband wrestled with our cell phone provider over the phone, to no avail. In the evening, we watched part of Tommy, a movie which I had seen before and found deeply disturbing. Ugh.

The following Tuesday, the bomb was dropped. BAM! Just like that.

My editing business suffered its first professional blow, the ins and outs of which I will not go into. This incident cast a large, dark shadow on the whole holiday season, and I still have not recovered from the blow to my business. My mood is very dark right now, and I certainly did not want to start 2021 this way.

Most complicated sentence in this story: “I was looking forward to exchanging gifts with my family, spending time with my husband, indulging in some tourtiere and other great food, and not working for a few days.”  Subject: I

 

So we can all agree that 2020 was a horrific, terrible year. (The heck with euphemisms like “challenging.”) That having been said, I am going to be glad to see it go back to Hell where it came from. And I am certain that you, dear reader, are as well.

Now that 2021 is almost upon us, I wanted to (as promised before) share my goals for this year with you all.

1. I wish to end 2021 posting a profit (as I have the previous two years) in my editing business.
2. I wish to save enough to be able to put aside funds to travel to San Antonio, TX for the 2022 ACES conference. (The 2021 conference is virtual.)
3. I wish to do well in the Advanced Copyediting class which I am taking in the spring.

I also have some goals which are not related to my profession, which I will share with you in order to give this blog some humanity:

1. I wish to survive the cicada swarm that will take place in May and June in my home state of Maryland.
2. I wish to spend a day in Hersheypark again. I have not been there in too long. (Yes, it really is spelled as one word. Look it up if you don’t believe me.) 🙂
3. I wish to mend one of my close friendships so that it is healthy again. (That’s all I wish to say about that here.)
4. I wish to be able to care for my aging parents.

I definitely prefer having goals for the new year to making new year’s resolutions. Goals are so much better, in my opinion.

What are some of your goals for 2021?

NAIWE writing prompt: Describe your favorite holiday food.

My heritage is French-Canadian and my mother is from Quebec province, and my absolute favorite holiday food is a traditional French-Canadian dish called tourtiere (which should have an “accent grave” over the first “e” but I don’t know how to make those on WordPress). What on Earth is tourtiere, you ask?

It’s a meat pie, and it’s delicious.

To begin, tourtiere has a warm, flaky pie crust which covers its top and forms the bottom. The crust is golden in color, and practically melts in my mouth with every bite. When the tourtiere is served (i.e., sliced), the crust often falls apart and the meat spills onto the plate, but who cares? It’s still scrumptious.

The inside of the pie is a cooked mixture of ground pork, veal, and beef, which is seasoned with a generous amount of spices. Oh, how I wish I could remember what the spices are. They make the pie spicy, but not excessively so.

The consistency of the pie is a little bit dry, but not too dry. One will not see liquid on one’s plate when one has a slice of tourtiere.

I have helped my mother make tourtiere before, but it has been years since I have, and I confess that I’ve never made it myself. I am very skittish about using the oven.

Maybe someday, when I get braver and am less neurotically afraid of house fires.

 

Hello again, dear readers. I know that last week I said that this week I would share with you my goals for 2021. Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that I will not be sharing my 2021 goals this week. The good news is that I will share them two weeks from now. You see, I decided that it would make more sense to share goals for the new year on the cusp of the new year. Resolutions? Who needs those? Goals are the way to go. So, for those of you who were looking forward to seeing my 2021 goals this week…your gratification will be delayed. It gives you two more weeks to anticipate. 🙂

How often do you update your website and professional profiles? Do you update them regularly? Oh, dear reader, if you don’t, shame on you. I update my NAIWE profile, EFA profile, LinkedIn profile, and website once a month, either on or near the 15th day of the month. I also update my resume, which serves as a template for my other updates and which is accessible on my EFA profile, and my client list (an Excel spreadsheet for my own records). The thing to which I pay the most attention is the “Works Edited” section on my profiles and resume. Anything new gets added…as soon as I receive permission from the author. That is highly important as well–even more so than updating!

Of course, I blog every Sunday. If you have a blog, you should write in it at least once a week.

How often do you update your professional profiles? Do you think that I should update mine more often? What say you?

Hello, everyone.

Today I would like to showcase my accomplishments from the last couple of months or so.

For every quarter this year so far, I have come out “in the black.”

I am on track to finishing 2020 “in the black.”

I completed the EFA course Intermediate Copyediting.

I have nearly completed a sizable project for the company for which a good friend of mine works.

I just signed the service agreement to become a contractor with a major research university. I will be editing scientific grant proposals for their faculty.

I have maintained a good relationship with the church who was my first client, and the church continues to send work my way.

I became a contractor with a second major research university and have begun editing grant proposals for their faculty as well.

Whew!

I have some big goals for the whole of 2021, and next week I plan to share them with you in this blog.

What are your goals for 2021? Feel free to share them in the comments to this post.