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Using Book Reviews to Practice Developmental Editing

To get better at developmental editing you have to do developmental editing! But it’s not always easy to figure out how to go about that. Previously I’ve talked about being a beta reader as a way to gain practice as a DE. And, the self-paced Naked Editing class allows you to follow along as an…

Growing as an Editor

People with a growth-oriented mindset are happier and more successful than people with a fixed mindset (see Carol S. Dweck’s Mindset, among others). Growth versus Fixed Mindset People with a growth mindset are those who think they can learn and grow through hard work, persistence, and thoughtful feedback. A fixed mindset assumes that people are…

Solving for X

A while back I took a class on the algebra of symmetries and it turned out to be taught by a philosopher masquerading as a mathematics professor. Algebra, he told us, comes from the word al-jabr, which means restoration by balancing. “Restoring the unknown,” the teacher said. He went on to talk about how having…

Story Editing as a Second Career

When I teach developmental editing classes, I get a lot of students transitioning from other careers. They’re often lawyers, social workers, and teachers – though I’ve also taught actors, accountants, and engineers, among others. What they have in common is that they love stories and want to explore whether book editing (story editing/developmental editing) is…