dangerous compassions

I call you / from the comet's cradle

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

done

I was proofreading an interview transcription for my friend P, and it was super hard work. The guy who was being interviewed has an elliptical way of speaking, lots of false starts, and it was a heck of a pain to punctuate. But I finished this morning, and P's going to pick it up tomorrow and give me another interview transcription half as long to proofread for him--he's riding his bike here, which I think is a long way.

I have proofreading and editing skills, but I wish I had more. I wish I knew the actual proofing marks and could do it for a living. That would be good at-home work, freelance. For a long time now I've been thinking I should locate some schooling for this, either online or in person here in Sacramento. For a while I was interested in tech writing as a career, but that fell away. So I researched some tech writing programs a few years ago.... I should research editing programs. Kind of scary though.

Yesterday on our walk Erik and I were talking about jobs. When we lived in Bishop I applied for and really wanted a job teaching sex ed. They didn't hire me because I can't speak Spanish. I promised to learn, but that wasn't good enough, and they ended up hiring someone from out of the area. Yesterday I was pondering how different my life might be now if I had gotten that job and held onto it for a couple of years. So many other jobs would become available to me if I had that non-profit experience.

But I'm not interested in teaching anymore, I don't think. Well, I would teach again if I found a very special place, but that's a lot more of a dream than a plan.

In some ways scoring from home is ideal, but the work is so meaningless and tedious and brain-numbing. I guess editing could be the same way, depending on what I was editing. So maybe it's not such a good idea after all.

5 Comments:

  • At April 15, 2009 12:21 AM, Blogger Amanda Laughtland said…

    Maybe you could teach online? I like that way of teaching quite a lot.

    I think the Chicago Manual of Style has a page with a chart of the proofreading marks. I remember looking at it when I did an internship some years ago.

     
  • At April 16, 2009 8:28 AM, Blogger Hungry Forest said…

    HI,

    Received your zine yesterday and spent the majority of the day reading bits and pieces. Loved it all. Here's my review:
    http://hungryforest.blogspot.com/2009/04/zine-review-erik-and-laura-marie.html

    I hope it was okay if I took some quotes from it and scanned Erik and Laura-Marie Magazine #44 cover

    -kathy

     
  • At April 16, 2009 5:44 PM, Blogger Laura-Marie said…

    Mandy, thanks for your encouragement. I taught online once and really bombed it. But maybe I would do better now?

    Kathy, thanks again for the reviews. I wish you all the best with Hungry Forest.

     
  • At April 16, 2009 10:44 PM, Blogger Amanda Laughtland said…

    If you ever have questions or just want to talk about online teaching, drop me a line. :)

     
  • At April 23, 2009 8:59 AM, Blogger Laura-Marie said…

    Thanks, Mandy!

     

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