Conant Correct by Claire Conant

What do you do when you work at home, you’re a freelancer, and you get sick? Do you call in to yourself?

"Self, I’m sick. I’ll be staying home today."

"Okay, Self. Hope you feel better soon."

Seriously, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve really been sick with the flu, mostly, I think, because I’m not cooped up in those airtight offices that are breeding grounds for germs. I stay away from sick people, for the most part. When I did get sick, I think the worst part was trying to get ready for work, make myself at least feel presentable, and commuting in to the office. Once there, I could barricade myself at my desk and sniffle away.

Now, working at home, I don’t have to worry about that. Another gift of being self-employed and contracting my services. I can rest when I need to, work when I have bursts of energy, and still meet my deadlines.

(Not my actual window, but close to it, except there’s no view of the lake from my window. Image courtesy of easyart.com)

The sun is out, the breeze is blowing softly through the windows, I can hear the birds chirping, and the solitude is the best ever for editing and doing the work I do. I feel extremely lucky. No corporate stuffy, stifled, enclosed office cube with dust mites, fluorescent overhead lighting, re-circulated air that recycles germs, and windows that don’t open. No noisy neighbors gossiping outside my cube. No sitting in traffic for two hours a day. At lunch, I can walk through my tree-lined neighborhood and go get fresh veggies from the supermarket a mile away, or a Subway sandwich, or take Lily for a walk.

If we could all work like this - rather, if corporations realized the benefit in telecommuting - there would be less traffic, happier people, less pollution, gas prices might even go down because we wouldn’t be using so much gas, and life would be grand. Now, I’m not naïve - I do realize that some people have to be in the office or their place of employment. Telecommuting doesn’t work for everyone. I know that. Some people might not even like being at home all the time. But I do, and it works fabulously for me. Just saying.

Now, I really need to edit that doc. TTFN.

I just received an automated email newsletter and this was the opening line:

I have allot of information to share with you.

That should read “a lot” not “allot”.

The audience of this newsletter are people buying fabric. Some of these people might not recognize the error, and many might. For those that do recognize the error, the image this typo presents is - to me - one of a company who doesn’t pay attention to the small details.

Details count.

Just like with a resume, every contact you have with a potential customer should be perfect, always presenting your best foot forward. Mistakes like this are easily corrected, but better corrected before they’re sent out.

Few appreciate the benefit of a good editor.

I used to work for a corporation as a technical editor. My role was mainly to focus on all the technical documentation (user guides, installation manuals, operations guides) but the marketing director insisted that everyone in his department send their documents through me for a final editorial pass before they were distributed outside the company. It was my job to “save the company from any potential embarrassment.” I caught problems like this, ensured consistent messaging throughout all the documents, and made sure that a consistent tone and style was applied. However once he left the company, the support for true editorial compliance left with him.

Can you afford not to have an editor?

Maybe fixing a small error like this one I saw won’t make a huge difference in this company’s overall sales, but since you never know online who is reading, can you afford to take the chance? The one person who is turned away from your site from something so easily corrected could just be the person who has a thousand dollar order to place. Or more.

Here’s a great article on the state of copy editors today, written by Lawrence Downes of The New York Times.  Unlike the author, my background is not in newspaper copy editing. I came to the profession in a roundabout way. I started off as a benefits administrator in a corporate Human Resources department, and the bulk of my responsibilities was editing (and writing) internal communications. I then moved to the role of technical writer, then to technical editor, and now I do copy writing, copy editing, writing for the web and content analysis, to name just a few.

I have the utmost respect for the copy editors that I correspond with through an online email list. There is an art, a skill, required in prepping manuscripts for print, evaluating and copy editing scientific, medical, and legal documents. The value of a copy editor, in my experience, is often lost on communicators, but shouldn’t be. We always add value, even if we ask "the irritating question".

And hopefully, we get to ask the question before it’s too late.

Remembering this:

And knowing that sometimes it is absolutely necessary. I love my  job.

PS - This hangs on the wall in my office, right next to the window that I get to look out of and open to let the sweet, almost-summer breeze float through.

A little background

I’ve been writing and editing for years in one fashion or another, but always in the corporate environment, for a long time in Human Resources, and then in the technical communications arena. I have had the opportunity to write and edit just about every type of corporate communication possible. It’s something I enjoy and something I’m good at - or so I’m told.

However, I grew weary of corporate head honchos and other management types determining my worth and setting limits to how successful I am, regardless of how hard I work. A few years ago, I was in my manager’s office. I recall mentioning to him something about starting a writing and editing business. I think then my thoughts were centered more around the idea that he should start it and I’d come work for him.

Consulting anyone?

Fast forward a couple years. That manager left, and I assumed his role - unofficially - leading a team of two technical writers, as well as managing the implementation of a corporate intranet upgrade using Microsoft SharePoint 2007. I was smart enough to know that I was lacking in some critical areas of expertise, so I hired some consultants who could handle the technical side of the implementation and I worked closely with them. It was during this time that I realized I really liked the consultant side of business.

Once the implementation was complete, I changed sides and started to work as an editor for a consulting firm. I absolutely loved it. I loved working with different clients, I loved the exposure to a variety of topics and businesses, and I got to see how the inside of a consulting firm works. I also had the chance to work with some very intelligent and creative people. I remember during the hiring interview telling the hiring manager that I’d start my own writing and editing consulting firm, if I had the courage, which I didn’t at the time.

Change comes unannounced

On December 14, 2007, that consulting firm reorganized and I was essentially laid off. It came as a complete surprise as I was still finishing up a project for a client, and we expected there to be another phase to that project. However, over the holiday period this gave me some time to reflect on my future and what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted more flexibility in my lifestyle, more control over my income, and more control over my career. Starting my business seemed to be the best option.

Starting Up

Once I made the decision to go solo, I came up with a business name and got my business license. That previous consulting company still contracts out work to me and I have work coming in from other places. I’m quickly learning to appreciate the ebb and flow of working for oneself - primarily the financial fluctuations. Once I understood how this worked, I learned to panic less and believe in myself.

Where will it lead?

I really like this new lifestyle I’ve chosen.As I go along, I’ll share with you some of the events that have occurred as I start my own business. I’m not sure where it will all lead. Perhaps someday I’ll own my own staff of fabulous writers and editors, or perhaps I’ll continue on my path of working for myself, by myself. Time will tell.

I came across this online, self-paced training that Microsoft provides for their products. This may be old news for some, but helpful for others.

For Word 2003: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/CR061958171033.aspx

For Word 2007: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/CR100654561033.aspx

And of course, you can find links to online training for all other Microsoft products.

Word - you either love it or you hate it, but either way, for most freelance writers and editors, it is a required tool. I’ve been using Word since the days of Windows 95 (maybe even before then) and have weathered its progress and, dare I say, growth. I’m now happily settled with Word 2007 on a Vista operating system. I used to be a huge fan of Adobe FrameMaker as an alternative to Word and for many cases, when working on extremely large, multi-chapter documents, it is still a good choice. However, among the clients I work for, Microsoft Word is still the common choice.

When is a shortcut not a shortcut?

Word has all these nifty buttons and shortcuts (pressing the ALT key with a sequence of numbers) that you can use to do things quickly (called direct formatting), but I’ve found they are not as efficient as you would think. Word loves to keep track of your keyboard choices so that if you make a mistake, it can be quickly undone. However, sometimes the shortcut causes more grief than you bargained for. Margins become screwed up, content floats off the page to a new page, numbering changes unexpectedly and more, not to mention your file size starts bloating exponentially. In short, Word happens.

Now we’re stylin’

However, all this can be easily avoided by using styles. Styles are easy to create and a little planning goes a long way to a happy relationship with Microsoft Word. I have a few standard styles that I keep loaded on my system: Body Text, Bullet 1 (main level bullet), Bullet 2 (slightly indented from the first level bullet), Step 1 (auto numbering for procedures), Step a (for second level procedures), Body Text Indent (for explanatory text within numbered steps where you don’t want a number or a bullet), and more. If the document I’m working on doesn’t have these styles, I quickly create them.

Never be Normal

Also, when setting up these styles, there’s an option to choose on which main style to base your new style. The default is Normal. I always change this to No Style. This is because the Normal style changes based on each computer user’s preference. For example, I may like all my default text to be set in Corbel (the font you see here) but another person might prefer Arial. If our styles are based on normal, the font and size will change when that user opens my document. This will cause the document to look differently for them than it did when I was finished with it. (Of course, there’s always saving as PDF, but this post isn’t about that.)

Want to learn more?

Microsoft has some great tutorials about how to use styles and set up your own list of quick styles. I’m not going to recreate the wheel, you can read about it here.  However, give it a try. I think you’ll find that the preplanning involved in setting up styles before you get started saves you a lot of time and headaches in the long run. At least, it does for me.

How on earth am I supposed to make any progress with THIS in my way? Huh?

I found out from my fellow freelance copywriter, Beth from Avenue Z Writing Solutions, that Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 is free. So, that’s what I’m using for now. Seeing as there’s only me here, and I don’t (yet) have a complicated employee and accounting system, it seems the easiest way to go. Downloading was easy and with most Microsoft products being released lately, there seems to be an emphasis on usability. I’ll report back with more when I have used it more extensively.