I am sorry about not posting for a few days. This is partially because I have been traveling back to New York (missing the YA prom in the process–I was supposed to be there), and partially because I thought it would be really smart to step on my computer. It wasn’t a huge step. Just a little trip, a few toes landing on the smoothy-smooth bit under the keys. I thought nothing of it when it happened.

Surprisingly, Gilda (my baby computer) did not like that at all. Especially since I seem to have crushed her disk drive. This amazes me and makes me feel powerful, like Godzilla.

Thank you for the many lovely comments about my first attempt at video blogging. John Green has told me that he wants me to video blog every week now, and that he will make me a Secret Sister.

Do I want to be John and Hank Green’s Secret Sister? YES!

Do I own a video camera? NO!

There’s the rub, readers. I borrowed the camera from Oscar. I explained this to John, and he said, “Oh, just buy one! They’re, like, ten dollars!”

John is notoriously off when it comes to figures, and he makes wild promises. He still owes me a thousand dollars from the time I got up and went out in the cold to get him a snack. Plus, I seem to be in a bit of a breaking streak. Gilda is only the latest victim.

It started when my computer bag broke. It’s pretty new, so I was surprised when the zipper popped out of joint and tore. Then I dropped my iPod headphones and stepped on them. The handle of my favorite mug snapped off in my hand when I picked it up. The bow on my favorite pair of shoes fell off. I broke the head off my precious plastic Japanese lady statue from the World’s Fair of 1939 while trying to put it on my head for a picture for John Green. The zipper on my suitcase snapped when I was zipping it up before going to the airport. And my DVD player is haunted and keeps opening and closing itself for NO REASON AT ALL.

I fear that if I buy the camera, it will explode the moment my credit card is accepted. I even managed to break my credit card a few weeks ago. Or rather, someone managed to break it for me by stealing my number. I found this out when I was blocked from buying a sandwich. I called up the company, and they said, “Oh yeah. We were just about to call you. Did you just buy $780 worth of stuff from NFL.com? In the name of David Jensen?”

Answer: no.

So, my credit card was canceled, and they had to send me a new one. This was clearly not my fault, but still. You can see this pattern developing, right? I’m not sure what to do—toy with fate and buy the camera, or sit in my apartment in a fortress of cardboard boxes and wait until this whole breaking spell is over.

I am happy to take your input on this matter. Like, if any of you are witches, could you maybe do some kind of spell to fix this up for me? In the meantime, let me get to one of your questions.

Anyway, question is: what’s the difference between copyediting and proofreading and regular editing and anything else a book might go through prior to publication? I ask b/c I’m trying to figure out a good job for myself to try to get after graduation.

Editors, like my editor Emma Lollipop, manage books on a big scale. They buy them. They work with the author to shape and improve the story. Editors have to do many things aside from actual editing, like working with the marketing and sales teams and making sure the author doesn’t melt down and hide inside a cardboard fort.

Copyeditors work with a book or a piece of text once it’s done, checking it to make sure it is grammatically and structurally sound, that it makes sense, and ensuring that there is nothing in there that seems flat-out wrong. Copyeditors can have conversations about things like comma usage that go on for hours and hours and can sometimes end in blows.

Once the copyeditors are done, the changes are made. Sometimes mistakes are made during the inputting. Proofreaders check the prepared or printed copy against the edited version to catch these mistakes.

I did all of these jobs at once time or another. I was iffy at best at the last two. Proofreading bores me to tears, and I spent much of my time drawing pictures of fanged rabbits on post it notes for my friends at work before getting back to writing whatever story I was using work hours to work on at the time.

What was REALLY great, though, was when I was an editor and had an assistant. I thought my boss was crazy to give me another human being to command, but I didn’t breathe a word of complaint.

“Thank you,” I said instead. “I will put him to good use.”

My assistant was a very nice guy who I immediately gave the name Cartography Jones (Carto for short). There was no shortage of actual work, but it seemed ridiculous to waste a fine assistant like Carto on that. I had other ideas.

Every day, I had new demands for Carto. I would command him to go to the conference room, where I would try to hypnotize him (I was reading a book on how to hypnotize people and needed a subject). I cut out pictures of scary cats and marmosets and hid them strategically around his desk, so when he would move his mouse or pick up papers, beady eyes would peer out at him. I would sneak up on him when he was making copies for me in our spooky copy corner and frighten him. I insisted on having conference calls with him even though our desks were only a few feet apart. I had mandatory dancing times. I would tell him to steal me a car. I fired and re-hired him dozens of times a day, depending on my mood. He knew I never meant it. I couldn’t go a day without Carto.

Carto would often start the day by finding something like this peeking out from under his keyboard.

I’ll bet you that if he reads this he will tell you all about the hundreds of post-its I left on his desk. When he would ask for my comments or advice, I would silently hand him notes that said things like: I AM AN IMPORTED CHEESE, which were obviously no help at all. Whenever I actually needed to send him notes, I would make paper airplanes out of them and throw them at his head when he was least expecting it.

When his nerves were jangled by all of this, I made him drink one of the dozens of healing teas that I kept in my drawer.

“What you need, Carto, is a ginger tea,” I would say. “I know this because I am your boss and therefore very wise. Get that down you so that we can race our chairs down the hall.”

It’s probably best that I’m not doing that anymore. Anyway, I have too much writing to do. And a fort to make. And maybe a camera to buy. No matter what, I will be posting more this week—and I look forward to hearing from all you witches out there.

Posted: Saturday, April 21st, 2007 @ 11:45 pm
Categories: Cartography Jones, publishing.
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