Sunday, January 4, 2009

In full edit mode...

Now that Leaden Skies is off with my publisher (the wonderful Poisoned Pen Press), I'm turning about 90% of my writing/editing focus on projects under contract (the other 10% being reserved for blogs, email, Facebook——which I'm still learning——and such).

I'm editing a nonfiction ms right now and have become quite obsessed. Obsession is necessary, when in full copyedit mode. I'm merciless with dangling participles, subject-verb agreement, anarchic capitalization, questionable italics and quotemarks, so on and so forth. My 15th Edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is getting a workout.

And here's a photo for the season, taken by ice-climber William McConachie. It's the Sierras, not the Rockies, but I can dream... And look at those leaden skies!


photo credit: William McConachie

13 comments:

Dani said...

No! And misplaced modifiers? Ellipses? How about sentence fragments?? Redundant punctuation???

LOL.

Dani
http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com

Morgan Mandel said...

I better be careful how I phrase this, since you're in that editor mode - I'm giving you a Your blog is Fabulous Award Monday at
http://makeminemystery.blogspot.com

Morgan Mandel

Sharon Reece said...

Awesome picture. We're expecting freezing rain here in Texas all day tomorrow. Wish it was going to be snow!

Katie Hines said...

Loved the picture! Sounds like you have a lot of things on your plate this year. Here's to great success with them!

Anonymous said...

I love the textural quality of this photo. The mist-and-snow-covered trees really lend a dreamy sense to the scene.

Beth Groundwater said...

Good luck with your editing, Ann, and congrats on Morgan's "Your blog is Fabulous Award"! I felt like I spent all last year editing various projects, and writing a brand-spanking-new short story is how I'm celebrating the new year. We got 8 inches of snow yesterday here in the foothills of Colorado Springs, BTW.

Shari Lyle-Soffe said...

The picture is breathtaking! I can feel the sting of cold air on my cheeks.

Shari

Heidiwriter said...

Great title, Ann, and great picture to illustrate what that means!
Happy Blogging
Heidi

Lael Johnson said...

Hi Ann,

Merciless is a great word for good copyediting.

Best wishes,

Lael

lucia said...

Great blog. I'm visiting as part of the blogger group, and I'm hooked. Can't wait to read more about your work. And great photos. All best, Lucia

Bob Sanchez said...

Congrats on your "Fabulous" award. Do you use a style sheet for your editing projects?

Ann Parker said...

Whoops! See what happens when I get caught up in things and time slides by??
I feel like I just walked into a party at the eleventh hour . . . and it's at MY house! :-}
Thank you, Morgan. I'm heading over to check out your blog. Hmmm. I'm wondering now how to respond to everyone in short order.
Hey, Dani, I'm a shameless indulger in ellipses. And sentence fragments. I love (love! love!) redundant punctuation. Carefully used.
And thanks, all, for the nice words on the photo. I'm trying to get this McConachie fellow to set up a "photo blog." Let's see if I can convince him after he sees the lovely comments about his work.

Ann Parker said...

Hello Bob!
I just had to click on your photo to get a closer look at the image. Lovely colors. Is it the cover to your book?
Anyhow, in answer to your question (and I see you are a fellow technical writer! ---secret handshake follows here--- ), different projects have different style guides. Where one isn't specified, I tend to go with Chicago (since it's most widely used. Well, seems to be, anyway). I do keep a running list of styles on a given project, when they prove problematic.