I’m eyebrow deep in copyediting Under the Rose for the next few days, so this is going to be quick.
In passing, here are some things I’ve learned care of my fabulous, fabulous copyeditor:
The thing I refresh approximately 694 times a day is called “e-mail” not “email.
It’s “Daily Kos” not “The Daily Kos.”
One should always double check, when revising lyrics, that one has not ruined the follow up joke that is based on the earlier draft of said lyrics.
The copyediting package include a style sheet that list all the proper names used. People in my book with names starting with O include: Odin, Orpheus, and Oscar the Grouch. I guess Odile is listed under her last name. (Yep, there she is, under D for “Dumas” and right after Darth Vader, Dickens, Dimmesdale, and Nancy Drew.) People in my book with names starting with V include: Cruella DeVille, The Virgin (Mary), and Lord Voldemort.
I can’t tell you how much fun I have with this list. Sailor Boy has gotten sick of my recitations. “Look honey: the Ks are Kali, Kandinsky, King Kong and Kurtz!” It’s totally my favorite part about copyediting.
8 Comments
December 18, 2006 at 12:55 pm
LOL! I love those lists, too. They came as a total surprise to me with my first book from Pocket because Harlequin doesn’t do them. Actually, I think my NAL novella came first. Anyway, it was still cool.
December 18, 2006 at 2:57 pm
My whole life, I’ve said/written “towards,” but with my edits, I’m now learning that the publishing world doesn’t like that s on the end. LOL!
December 18, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Every time a name starts with something like that, we go with the second capital. LaWhatever, as well I don’t know, Gina, maybe it’s a copyediting thing.
Marley, you and I must be secretly British. Seriously, you caught a lot of the towards during crits, my editor caught more of them, and the copyeditor caught the rest. But I’m not going to bust my butt over crap like htat. Not when it’s so easy before you turn something in to go “find/replace ALL” towards with toward.
I love the computer age!
December 18, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I used towards instead of toward too – Diana, I am going to use your find replace strategy from now on – and in copyediting my last novella I realized I’m the queen of word repetition. I don’t get the lists of proper names
would be helpful too, since usually by the time I get the copy edits I’ve usually forgotten all the secondary characters’ names.
Happy copy editing!
December 18, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Wow, those lists sound like fun! I would spend too much time reading those.
December 18, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Thanks for the heads-up about e-mail (let’s hear it for hyphens, says the Moby-Dick purist!).
What about cell phone / cellphone? One word or two? William Safire said in one of his columns that it’s one word (like telephone), but an awful lot of people swing the other way. What does your copyeditor say?
December 18, 2006 at 8:32 pm
I love that word list that give you with copyedits! It’s like your very own vocabulary report *g*
And I’m the queen of reptitive words too, Jamie
And I loathe the serial comma and probably drive my poor copyeditors insane. (i’m so sorry. *blushing*)
December 19, 2006 at 1:58 am
Re: the DeVille thing…
I’m probably sensitive because my maiden name was D’Esopo and I *never* knew where I was going to be filed. Sometimes D. Sometimes E. Sometimes I. (It’s amazing how many people wouldn’t recognize and apostrophe if it stared them in the face.) And sometimes even…S.