Deanna Hoak

I’m behind in my web searches about copyediting, but I just came across this interesting post about my profession.

Many of the comments make me cringe, because they highlight things that copyeditors just aren’t supposed to do–I suppose there’s a reason why some authors dislike the process, though I’ve been really lucky with mine. It’s nice to see a post expressing appreciation, though.

And here’s another nice post praising the skill of copyediting. I wasn’t the copyeditor for Joe Schreiber’s Eat the Dark, but whoever was–kudos to you! I’m particularly fond of this quotation from the post:

Not only do I salute this person as I do anybody who performs a very specialized and critical task that I couldn’t imagine myself performing except disasterously (imagine a clumsy and nearsighted child coloring a balloon with very sharp colored pencils, and there you have your allegory), but I salute them because they are the last in the long line of people that my story the best it can be.

(I will make a nice post sometime, btw, about why I prefer “copyeditor” to “copy editor”–complete with links to other copyeditors and publishing folks [even at CMS!] who feel the same way–but not just now. I’m swamped. Maybe next month. :-))