EDITING BY EMMA
ABOUT ME
I am a somewhat well-travelled and reasonably well-read woman who adores the English language. I live in beautiful Perth, Western Australia and am enjoying raising my family here, but I love the places I've lived in before, as well: Hong Kong, country NSW, Sydney, and London. One day I hope to write books set in all of these places; in the meantime, I edit.
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Writing is a form of magic. Truly, it is! A form of communication taking place between one and any number of people, separated by time and/or distance, connected only by particular squiggly markings on some kind of background surface, which somehow transmits ideas directly from the writer's mind to inside the mind of the reader.
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But, as Elon Musk says, writing can be 'lossy'; there are so many things that can get in the way of the received "mind picture" being anything like the one you, as the sender, may have intended... just look at any comments section on the internet! And while a writer might not be able to control exactly how your words get interpreted, there are lots of ways to help your mind picture get through as close as possible to as many people as possible.
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HOW I GOT INTO EDITING
While working as a PA and legal assistant in large corporate firms in Sydney and London, there were proofing aspects to my role, but only enough to give me the smallest taste of editing. I always enjoyed that part of my work but didn't really give it any further thought. Then my father took a correspondence course on proofing and editing, which made me more aware of these fields of endeavour, but I still didn't think about it as a possibility for myself.
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After our first child was born, the three of us moved to Perth, where, soon after, our second child was born. We've been busy raising them for the past few years—rewarding and exhausting in equal measures—but once both children reached full-time school, I started looking for something more to do. I knew I didn't want to return to full-time work. My sister-in-law introduced me to a lady who was writing her memoir but needed help. I agreed to help her, and the next thing I knew, I was a published editor.
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In talking to friends about this amazing & enjoyable event, I started finding new leads. My new career landed in my lap! Since then, I've successfully helped people with webpages, mission statements, dissertations, theses, and more. I've edited a further two books, and am currently assisting two authors with two more.
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In December 2020 I sat my IPEd accreditation exam and after a prolonged wait, I found out in mid-February 2021 that I... passed! I am officially an accredited editor. Very exciting.
I may have fallen into editing as a profession, but I have loved books, and the words in them, all my life. My happy place is wherever I can have my nose in a book. I almost always have one on me—I never fear waiting rooms or long queues, as, if I have something to read, they are a blessing. While I understand the attractions and advantages of reading on a kindle or smartphone, for me personally, the printed book is my favourite by far.
BOOKS I'VE READ
Since I was about 17, I've kept a record of every book I've read. It was obvious to me even then that I would need help to remember what I'd read, and that has only got more true as I've gotten older. There have been so many times—before Google—when I struggled to remember the title or author of a book, which I've been able to retrieve with the help of this list.
I know I'm not alone as there are now many apps, like Goodreads, which allow you to track exactly this. Unfortunately, they weren't around 20+ years ago.
Even better, Pamela Paul, the editor of the New York Times' Book Review, keeps a very similar list, which she calls Bob - her "Book of Books". She even wrote a book about it!
Anybody else out there keep a Bob? How many matches do we have on books we've read? Any recommendations of good books to read?
"You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you, and we edit to let the fire show through the smoke."
Arthur Plotnik
REVIEWS
Check back here soon for reviews of books I've recently read. I need to upload some more pictures from my "Bob", as I've filled two more pages since I made this site! The last few books I've read have been:
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"Contact" by Carl Sagan
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"Ducks, Newburyport" by Lucy Ellmann
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"Honeybee" by Craig Silvey
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"All Our Shimmering Skies" by Trent Dalton
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I hope to leave a review for each of these before much longer. I've linked to different sites for each book, in a deliberate effort to stay away from amazon... hope you enjoy the variety.