Time for a Clarity Editor round-up! June and July were nice and busy with some exciting new projects. It was also a bit tough healthwise, once again highlighting how, for a freelancer, our body is our number-one asset.
One thing about being a freelance editor that I’m truly enjoying is getting to do new things. And there was plenty of that in June & July:
Error-hunting in galley proofs
The proofs in question were for a 276-page Oxford University Press economics book due out in 2019, The Globotics Upheaval. I was a bit nervous about it, seeing as how any errors I missed would go out into the big wide world! But I was pleased to catch a good crop of typos and other inconsistencies, although
Teaming up with an English coach
I found out that a Japanese mommy-friend is an English coach: She helps her Japanese clients first identify their English learning goals (for what do they want to improve their English?). Once that’s clear, she guides them through their studies to attain that goal. We’ve agreed to partner up, whereby I’ll assist in cases where the English level is advanced and requires a native speaker.
Brush with academia
A public administration professor commissioned me to edit her graduate student’s thesis and fix a few article abstracts written by Thai graduate students. The thesis was challenging, but I enjoyed doing the abstracts—it’s satisfying
Revamping website text
A Japanese clinic needed their English website text fixed so I was able to do that for them. They’ll also use the new text for their brochures, and plan to coach their staff in using the expressions I suggested. I’m looking forward to seeing the revisions go
My first invoices
Thank goodness for the internet! Templates abound so I gratefully made use of them to prepare my first invoices. And I succeeded in setting up a super simple spreadsheet (ISTJs love spreadsheets) to help me keep track of my project income. Woohoo!
Flu and food poisoning
An evil cold (which was suspiciously similar to the flu that struck down our next-door aunty and her maid) totally floored me for at least 4 weeks. It drained my energy and I found it hard to face the computer screen during that time. Then, when I finally recovered, I got food poisoning. Yuck. Getting sick is tough when you’re the only worker, marketer, and accountant for your business.
Coming up…
The fallout of being under the weather for so long was that I wasn’t able to put any energy into getting new projects, especially on Upwork and Lancers.
And now, it’s August and my kids’ school is out for the summer. That means no more quiet mornings for me. (On the other hand, I don’t have to get up at 5:30 and make bento lunches or sit in traffic for 2 hours every day to pick the kids up, so yay.)
Guess I will have to accept that I’m operating on holiday mode and not get too worried about a little lull in the editing sphere…
Need a native-English editor used to working with non-natives help you with your English writing? Get in touch!
Image source: Pxhere
