Ten Warning Signs A Working Relationship May Not Work Out

Since graduation in May I have humbly attempted to grow a freelance editing business. Having little inclination towards business practicalities, I have been learning a lot of lessons the hard way. The latest involved an aspiring author who was impossible to work with. There is a bright side! He has helped me to identify ten warning signs of a doomed editorial project, and possibly warning signs of doomed working relationships in general:

10. Gives you reason to suspect that he believes he personally coined the phrase "turn lemons in to lemonade" and thinks he is genius for it.

9. Has unreasonable expectations regarding your ability to prognosticate the precise number of words you will edit in a given hour.

8. Refuses to pay you in full for a project he approved you to begin work on.

7. Has never heard of PayPal but asks if you take money orders.

6. Forbids you to spend the money he paid you on your upcoming trip to an academic conference because he does “not want to finance your vacation.”

5. Composes text messages in all capital letters.

4. Refuses to open email attachments.

3. Marks every voicemail as urgent.

2. Ends every voicemail and conversation with the word “out.”

and . . . drum roll please . . .

1. Consistently refers to himself in the third person, by his last name, preceded by “the.” Yes. Think “The Miz” of Real World then wrestling fame.

What a fluke to have found so many eccentricities in one person! Perhaps he is a narcissist, perhaps he is a victim of trust issues, or perhaps he is a sufferer of a great many other psychological issues. One thing is for sure: I will no longer be working with him.

In Honor of the 2010 World Cup

At first glance, this looks to be a glaring typo! Clearly, the 'a' is missing from the what should be "goal."

Upon further consideration, we find that it is the correct spelling of the Spanish word for goal.

I choose to believe that, in actuality, Chester Cheeto predicted Spain, the original Spanish-speaking country, as the winner. It's science. Well, it's linguistics.

Take that Octopus Paul.

Special thanks goes to Ms. Rehfeldt for this contribution.

A Freudian Grip and the Question of Originality

There is nothing more purely entertaining than sitting around, laughing, chatting, saying something clever and witty, and thinking you have come up with something new.

. . . and then there is nothing more disappointing than realizing your cleverness is not all that original because someone else has come up with it first.

Case in point? A little discussion I had the other night. In a silly exchange I posited, “What does one call it when someone makes a gestural Freudian slip?” You know what I mean: an accidental graze of another person’s anatomical part. (Perhaps not so accidental if you are a creepy old man.) We could only presume that there must be some description of such a phenomenon! The obvious term, of course, was Freudian grip. Having never heard the term before, we rejoiced in our inventive wittiness.

Then, of course, a craving for further knowledge reared its ugly head and a Google search ensued.

I took what I considered to be a logical approach and did a Google search for “gestural Freudian slip.” The search results were not very helpful. There was a random smattering of topics including George Bush, some Second Life thing, and a few blogs. I did a bit of actual research and, apparently, a gesture falls within the traditional definition of Freudian slip.

But what about the oh-so-much cleverer term Freudian grip? Surely the genius of the phrase should not be lost to the world! So, on a lark, I did a Google search of Freudian grip. Much to my surprise, results abounded for the term I thought we had just created! The results included some highly suggestive photos, a comic art piece, and several results related to Freud. But not Mr. Sigmund Freud! In a dramatic twist, I came to find many of the results relating to Freudian grip led to figurative painter Lucian Freud, one of Sigmund’s grandsons. I drew some relief in noting that none of the results exhibited the connotation or definition of our invention. But still, Freudian grip was clearly nothing new.

This information chasing led me to realize how hard it is to be original in an age where so much knowledge is so easily accessed. How does the ease of accessing information affect our modern conceptions of originality? Am I any less original or creative for having thought of something on my own if it has already been conceived?

At any rate, next time you quite unknowingly find your hand nudging an unseemly bodily nook or cranny call it what it is: a Freudian grip.

Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man: A Novel

So, a major impetus behind the creation of this blog was to have a means to make public what I consider to be valid and thoughtful opinions on books. I see my book posts occurring in two ways: 1) converting written records of books previously read to this online format and 2) conveying my thoughts of books I have recently finished.

This first book post is dedicated to the novel I last finished: Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man. Ms. Smith is a highly talented author. I delighted in her prose and found her descriptions both unique and imaginative. I also appreciated the topic of her novel. The quirky protagonist, Alex-Li Tandem, deals in the autograph trade and is a well-developed character. Some of his bumbling cluelessness reminded me of Ignatius J. Reilly from Confederacy of Dunces, though I cannot put my finger on why, and the books are nothing alike. While I loathed some of Alex-Li's more unsavory decisions, I came to appreciate his good intentions and became invested in his struggle to deal with his reality--a reality he clearly tries to escape through his preoccupation with Hollywood and the movies he watches over and over again that star his favorite actress.

Ms. Smith is most noted for her first novel White Teeth, for which she won several awards and accolades. You may wonder why I did not read that work, and the explanation is quite simple. I stumbled across The Autograph Man at Changing Hands, the wonderful bookstore I frequent. It was a hardcover book for $7.50 and I couldn't resist! Such a fantastic author cannot just have her book abandoned on the sale shelf! The book needed to have a home! (I have a book buying problem so serious I refer to it as book rescuing . . . but more on that later.)

RECOMMENDED: Yes

NEXT READ: Gail Carriger's Soulless

REREAD: Roald Dahl's Matilda


Smith, Zadie. The Autograph Man: A Novel. New York: 
     Random House, 2002.

An Unbearable Facebook Status

A shameless pun? Indeed!

This Facebook status was forwarded to me yesterday and my editing instincts immediately kicked in, so bear with me (oh, yes, another pun).



Though I am not Facebook friends with this particular bear lover, I hoped against hope that his or her mauling of the English language was a result of extreme emotional duress. Surely, the terrible spelling and lack of punctuation is due to some tragedy beyond the realm of any imagination! But what terrible event could inspire such egregious errors and senseless abuse of words?

I put my Google search skills to use! The result? I can only assume that the tragic Facebook status is based on two news articles. The first, from May 29, 2010, is entitled "Bear helping himself to chicken coop gets shot." The second, from May 31, 2010, is entitled "Backpacker shoots, kills grizzly in Denali National Park." But the plot thickens! There appears to have been a third bear death on June 1, 2010. Who knows what poorly authored response the moving news piece "Dog intervenes in grizzly attack, but bear is eventually shot" will elicit from our bear-adoring Facebook friend.

Disclaimer: Though this post is jocular in nature, I am poking fun at the ineptly articulated response to the bear deaths. I would never use the actual deaths of the bears as fodder for my wit. If you'd like to see the articles for yourself, they can all be found on the Anchorage Daily News website: adn.com.

Special thanks goes to Ms. Rehfeldt for this contribution.

Blog the First

Well, friends, today is the day. Today is the day I give the world my first blog entry. As a longtime resident of the Twittersphere, I have decided it is time to delve into the blogosphere. I have already exceeded 140 characters, and I feel like a rebel!

I am a simple creature, with simple tastes. I like my books (well-edited, of course) and I like the people in my life, who indulge my bookish ways. But, you may ask, why am I starting this blog now? I admit, it has taken me awhile to get on the blogwagon. This is mostly due to the last three years of my life spent juggling an English master's program, a Scholarly Publishing Certificate program, tutoring a fourteen-year-old in English and writing, freelance editorial work, working at various jobs and internships, volunteering at an organization that records books for the blind and dyslexic (RFBandD), presenting papers at academic conferences, and, in any remaining free time, reading for pleasure and sleeping. Why all the free time now? Well, despite what I consider being extremely qualified, I have had little luck in getting a job. More precisely, I have had no luck getting publishers to hire me as an editorial assistant so I can work towards the real goal: being an acquisitions editor. More on that later, because I suspect jobless woes may contribute content to this blog to some degree.

Besides being a highly qualified, vivacious, young lass not being able to secure a publishing job, what else do I anticipate this blog to bring? Well, it will have a lot about books. The books I am reading, the books I have read, and the books I want to read. I find it difficult to read as anything but a critical thinker, so I will likely defy the popular opinion on books. I have two English degrees under my belt, so, to put it simply: I read a lot and expect a lot. I will also regale you with the calamities and adventures freelance editing brings. I am an avid traveler, so await tales of foreign lands! My next trip is in July, when I find myself traveling to Israel and Egypt. And, due to semi-popular demand, I will, from time to time, harness my inner snarkiness to ruthlessly judge and possibly mock egregious errors of the typographical, grammatical, and spelling variety.