A career as an editor is often a solo adventure, especially if you’re a freelancer. So, we thought one way to better connect with fellow editors was to ask them to submit their responses to a set of questions based on the Five Ws: who, what, where, when, and why. Read on for some thought-provoking, enlightening tidbits from those of us who choose to work with words to earn our keep.
Please tell us a little about yourself, the kind of work you do (and where you live), and how long you’ve been an editor.
I started editing well before I knew it was a profession. At business school and then in my first career as a business consultant, I was the person others asked to review their writing, but I had no idea what I was doing! When I heard an editor speak at a writers’ conference in my hometown of Winnipeg in the late 1990s, it was a revelation. This was the job I really wanted! In 2001, I moved to Vancouver to complete the editing certificate at SFU, and from 2004 to 2006 I gradually shifted my career. In 2016, it was a thrill to join West Coast Editorial Associates and become partners with some of my former SFU instructors.
Today from my home office in Vancouver, on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam People, I divide my time between three main things: copy editing and proofreading non-fiction (mostly cookbooks), writing corporate and family history books, and training and coaching workplace writers (like I used to be) to use plain language. These niches might seem like they have little in common, but they all let me work with fantastic clients and colleagues to connect with readers as clearly and engagingly as possible. Each niche uses my brain in different ways, and I like that their projects have different time scales. The mix works perfectly for me.
Who: If you could edit one famous author, living or dead, who would it be?
Tough one! Given that most of the editing work I do these days is in the cookbook genre, I’ll select my favourite cookbook author: Ina Garten and her incomparable Barefoot Contessa series.
What: What is the one thing that has helped you the most in your career as an editor?
Keeping my eye on the mountain and taking one step, and then another, toward it. I am talking about an idea from writer Neil Gaiman’s speech and book Make Good Art, which I wrote about in a blog post a few years ago. Picturing my career goals as a distant mountain rising in front of me motivates me to keep moving in that direction.
Where: If you could work anywhere in the world as an editor, where would that be?
The beauty of being a freelance editor is that I don’t have to choose! While raising my son, it has suited me best to work from home in Vancouver — or sometimes from my family’s summer cottage on Lake Winnipeg. But the day may come when I want to do my work from somewhere else. It’s nice to know that this career could move with me.
When: Was there ever a time in your life when you seriously questioned your career choice?
I certainly questioned my business career before I became an editor! But that’s not what you’re asking. I actually don’t think I’ve ever seriously questioned my choice to become an editor, writer, and trainer. I’m beyond glad I shifted away from an earlier line of work that wasn’t nearly as fulfilling.
Why: Why did you choose to become an editor? Or, should we ask: Why did editing choose you?
One of my editing origin stories took place in a Swiss Chalet in 2001. I was there with two colleagues on a lunchbreak from the procurement project we were working on for an oil company in Mississauga, Ontario — a project that I found mind-numbingly boring.
The restaurant menu offered a list of side dishes, and the punctuation and conjunctions in that list were a nightmare. I couldn’t tell if I was allowed to order one, two, or three side dishes, but when I asked the server to clarify, she and my two colleagues stared at me like, “What’s your deal? Just pick a side dish already! Who cares about where the comma is and whether it says ‘or’ or ‘and’!”
But I cared because the text was confusing. Things like that kept happening, and I realized that I had a knack for noticing the details and making things clearer. As soon as I discovered that editing was a career and went back to school to learn how to do it, things just fell into place so naturally.
And, of course, we just had to ask the inevitable how: How would you sum up your motto?
As I described above, “keep moving toward the mountain” is kind of a motto for me. It involves a destination, but it is mostly about the journey to get there, one step at a time. I’ve never been one for big, dramatic moves and overnight successes. Methodical, steady progress is how I’m getting to where I want to be.
This article was copy edited by Vilma Indra Vītols, a freelance editor living in Toronto. She is a member of the Plain Language Association International (PLAIN) and sings with the Canadian Opera Company Chorus.
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