Deanna Hoak

I found out this morning that About.com has several of my articles on copyediting linked. That’s cool. I thought for a moment that maybe they had discovered my website when I sent them a correction regarding their article on Colt revolvers several months ago–they have the patent date (which was 1836) wrong by an entire [...]

I’m astounded at the things being developed these days. Here’s a nifty one: a T-shirt that senses your air guitar strumming and turns it into music. On the copyediting front, for those LJ users who might have missed it over the weekend, you might be interested in checking out my post “Copyediting, Illustrated.” It was [...]

An author friend of mine noted to me that a lot of writers might not understand the copyediting marks on their manuscripts, and I thought a post detailing some of the most common marks might be helpful. Even the cleanest manuscript will come back marked up. Individually designed elements such as chapter numbers and titles [...]

Well, my notion to have people post good and bad copyediting stories flopped like a fish a few feet from the water, didn’t it? As a blogger, you wonder why something like that doesn’t work better. Because I asked for specifics? Because people don’t have both kinds of stories? Because people only want to share [...]

I know, without a doubt, that authors differ in what they want in a copyedit. I think the primary reason I’ve been able to make a living freelancing for so long is because I do a decent job, overall, at analyzing the style of each author whose work I get and determining what that author [...]

In a very good way. I’ve been very lucky in having a lot of authors express their thanks to me for my work on their books, but Fiona’s is particularly wonderful for suggesting that copyeditors and other “invisibles” in the process deserve recognition for their contributions. For those who don’t click links, here’s some of [...]

Note: None of the below is to be taken as any indication that I don’t absolutely adore my kids. I love them dearly, but it would be nice to be able to talk openly about the challenges of being a parent working at home without the fear that you’re going to be accused of not [...]

Those of you interested in the writing process might like to check out David Louis Edelman’s post “From First to Final Draft: A Case Study,” which discusses the various drafts of his novel Infoquake. Dave talks about the copyediting a bit in the final draft, which is linked in the post. It’s really wonderful when [...]

Then go see this copyediting moment of the day. :-D

I need some further information on my current project before I’m able to continue with the copyedit, so I actually have time to blog. :-) Something that’s been on my mind lately is the issue of variant spellings, and how copyeditors decide which ones to allow. First, I think a lot of people believe that [...]