Project: Realignment

At midnight on September 30, I logged out of my Facebook account and removed the app from my phone. I’m not giving up Facebook forever. I’m just taking a month-long hiatus as part of a larger project of realigning my priorities and developing more mindful habits. The past two months have been a very exciting and very busy time for me as a freelancer, but I’m realizing that I need and want to adjust to make sure I can actually enjoy the flourishing of my business.

Keep reading…

Working in words

Today I came across an interview with veteran editor Tammy Ditmore. The interviewer asked Tammy what she would do if she weren’t an editor, and she replied:

It would have to involve words. I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was eight, and I feel I have lived my dream, even if I don’t often get a byline. For me, editing is “working in words”—allowing me to focus on language in ways I find deeply satisfying.

I, too, have wanted to be a writer since I was eight (or perhaps even younger). And I, too, find editing deeply satisfying—which comes as a surprise to a lot of folks. Keep reading…

Making mistakes

I’m a member of a copyediting listserv, and recently a thread was started on a topic of special interest to me. It’s an icky, dirty, hush-hush topic: mistakes. As editors our job is to identify and fix mistakes. So what happens when, instead of fixing mistakes, you slip up and miss them, or make them yourself? Editor Jan Arzooman started the thread, and she put it this way: “In a job where someone’s looking for perfection, what if you’re less than perfect?”  Keep reading…

New text: The Basket’s Display

It’s always exciting when a text that I have edited is finally released for public enjoyment. I work on projects intensely for weeks and weeks and then send them off for other kinds of treatments: proofreading, cover design, markup for online publication. That process takes months, so when a text finally appears, shiny and polished and out there for anyone to see, I feel a little glimmer of surprise—it’s really real!

Making its debut today is The Basket’s Display (translated by Peter Alan Roberts), a sūtra that is the origin of the famous mantra oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ. Keep reading…

Why elephants?

Since having my business cards printed in December, I’ve been asked one question over and over again: “Why elephants?”

Here’s why: Keep reading…

Welcome!

Dear readers, one and all: Welcome to my new website! I’m so glad you’re here. Take a look around, make yourself at home, stay as long as you like. Around the site you can learn about who I am and what I do. Here on the blog, from time to time I’ll post musings on the writing and editing process; recent projects; life as a freelancer; tips, tools, and inspiration; travel; and other adventures in life and literature. Keep reading…

My name, in a book

There I am, in a book that I can hold and open and crease and dog-ear and read (or not read) and alphabetize and pick back up and skim (or devour cover to cover) and file and admire in its proper place on my bookshelf, with pages I can turn and a cover whose corners will one day turn white and rounded and frayed. It came in the mail today, in a plain, brown media mail envelope. I keep opening it up to revel in it. It’s like a grown-up college acceptance letter. I’m in!