#then copyediting

[aquitainequeen]

Editor: So the manuscript is probably going to be ready by 1st June; I was really hoping we be able to publish it in November, so that we could have copies for [huge academic conference]!

Me: ......

Me, internally: Mate, even if you submitted the manuscript today, we wouldn't be able to publish it by November.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Novel Editing

Below are 4 different types of novel editing. Revising in the right order is essential if you want your book to be in the best shape possible.

Developmental Editing

Comes first.

Involves looking at the story as a whole.

Also called structural editing, or content editing.

Base components. Plot, structure, characterization, pace, viewpoint, narrative style, and tense:

Plot: Sequence of events that take the reader from the beginning to the end.

Structure: How the plot is organized. Even if B occurred after A, the reader might learn about B before the events of A are unveiled.

Characterization: How characters are represented such that we can make sense of their behavior as we journey with them through the story.

Pace: The speed at which the story unfolds. Effective pace ensures readers feel neither rushed nor bored. That doesn’t mean the pace remains steady; a story can include sections of fast-paced action and slower cool-downs.

Viewpoint: In each chapter or section, readers should understand who the narrator is—whose eyes they are seeing through, whose emotions they have access to, whose voice dominates the narrative. It also means understanding the restrictions in play such that head-hopping doesn’t pull the reader out of the story.

Narrative style: Is the narrative viewpoint conveyed in the first, second or third person? The choice determines a narrative’s style.

Tense: Is the story told in the present or the past tense? Each has its benefits and limitations.

Notes: On Developmental Editing

Types of developmental edits:

Full-novel edits in which the editor revises (or suggests revisions) that will improve the story;

critiques or manuscript evaluations that report on the strengths and weaknesses of the story; and

sensitivity reads that offer specialist reports on the potential misrepresentation and devaluation of marginalized others.

Different editors handle developmental edits in different ways.

One might include an assessment of genre and marketability; another might not.

Some editors revise the raw text; others restrict the edit to margin markup.

Check what you’re being offered against what you want.

Developmental editing isn’t about checking spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Line Editing

The next step in the revision process; it is stylistic work. 

A strong sentence elevates story; a poorly crafted one can bury it.

This level of editing revises for style, sense, and flow.

Also called substantive editing or stylistic editing.

Editors will be addressing the following:

Authenticity of phrasing and word choice in relation to character voice

Character-trait consistency and unveiling

Clarity and consistency of viewpoint and narrative style

Cliché and awkward metaphor

Dialogue and how it conveys voice, mood, and intention

Sentence pace and flow, with special attention to repetition and overwriting

Tenses, and whether they’re effective and consistent

Told-versus-shown prose

Notes: On Line Editing

Types of sentence-level edits:

Full-novel line edits in which the editor revises (or suggests revisions) that will improve the line work;

line critiques that report on the strengths and weaknesses of the line craft; and 

mini line edits in which the editor revises an agreed section of the novel such that the author can hone their line craft and mimic the edit throughout the rest of the novel.

Different editors define their sentence-level services differently.

Some include technical checking (copy editing) with the stylistic work, while some do the stylistic and technical work in separate passes.

Check what you’re being offered against what you want.

Line-editing stage is not the ideal place to be fixing problems with plot, theme, pace and viewpoint. Fixes are likely to be inelegant and invasive.

Copy Editing

The technical side of sentence-level work.

Editors will be addressing the following:

Chapter sequencing

Consistency of proper-noun spelling

Dialogue tagging and punctuation

Letter, word, line, and paragraph spacing

Logic of timeline, environment, and character traits

Spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation, hyphenation, and capitalization

Standard document formatting

Notes: On Copy Editing

Some editors offer line editing and copy editing together in a single pass. That combined service might be indicated by what it’s called, e.g. ‘line-/copy editing’. However, it might be called just ‘copy editing’ even though it includes stylistic work.

Check what you’re being offered against what you want.

Novel copy editing is best done in a single pass:

When an editor works on separate chunks of text, inconsistencies are likely to slip through.

One pass of a sentence-level edit is not enough to ready a novel for publication. Final quality control is necessary.

Proofreading

The last stage of the editing process prior to publication.

Every novel, whether it’s being delivered in print or digitally, requires a final quality-control check.

What a Proofreader Does

Looks for literal errors and layout problems that slipped through previous rounds of revision or were introduced at design stage.

Authors preparing for print can ask a proofreader to annotate page proofs. These are almost what a reader would see if they pulled the novel off the shelf.

Others ask proofreaders to amend the raw text, either because they’re preparing for e-publication or for audiobook narration.

Proofreaders are more than typo hunters

They check for consistency of spelling, punctuation and grammar, but also for layout problems such as (but not limited to) indentation, line spacing, inconsistent chapter drops, missing page numbers, and font and heading styles.

The art of good proofreading lies in knowing when to change and when to leave well enough alone.

A good proofreader should understand the impact of their revisions—not only in relation to the knock-on effect on other pages but also to the cost if a third-party designer/formatter is part of the team.

Notes: On Proofreading

A proofread is rarely enough, no matter how experienced the writer. It’s the last line of defense, not the only line of defense.

Be sure to clarify with an editor what you want and which mediums the editor works with. Proofreading designed page proofs requires an additional level of checking that a raw-text review doesn’t. And some editors work only on raw text, some only on PDF, and some only on hard copy.

Proofreading is about quality control. The proofreader should be polishing the manuscript, not filling in plot holes or trimming purple prose.

PROOFREADING CHECKLIST

Author:

Title:

Prelims

Title page. The title of the book, the author’s name & the publisher are correct

Copyright page. Check that author name and date of publication are correct, and that the copyright statement is present and correct

Dedication. The spelling/punctuation style are correct & consistent

Acknowledgements. The spelling/punctuation style are correct & consistent

Foreword. The spelling, layout and punctuation style are correct and consistent

Preface. The spelling, layout and punctuation style are correct and consistent

Table of contents. Check against all chapter titles & subheadings in main text for consistency of spelling/capitalization; Check page numbers against main text

Figures, tables, maps, plates. Check against all entries in main text for consistency of spelling/capitalization; Page numbers against entries in main text

List of contributors. Check consistency with chapters in main text Are the names spelled correctly and rendered consistently (e.g. A. B. Smith, AB Smith, A.B. Smith, Alan B. Smith etc.)?

Pagination. Check that all prelim pages are numbered consecutively and correctly in Roman (i, ii, etc. unless brief specifies Arabic); Check that size and position of page numbers is correct and consistent

Running heads. Check that running heads in prelims are correct and consistent (size, font, colour, position on page)

Main Text

Pagination

Check that all text pages are numbered consecutively in main text

Check that size and position of page numbers is correct and consistent

Check that first page of the first chapter starts on a recto (right-hand page)

Check that all odd page numbers are on rectos

Running heads

Check that running heads match chapter heads (or abbreviated forms of them)

Running heads are correct/consistent (size, font, colour, position on page)

Running heads and folio numbers have been removed from landscaped figures and tables

Check that running heads have been removed from part- and chapter title pages

Chapter titles and headings (incl. subheadings)

Consistency of font, spacing, colour, size & position on page for each heading level

Check that capitalization is correct and consistent for each heading level

Check that each chapter drop is consistent

Check that space above and below is consistent within heading level

Lists

Check that spacing above and below lists is consistent

Ensure line spacing of list entries is consistent

Check that bullet style is consistent within list type

Check that end-of-line punctuation is consistent within list

Page depth

Check page depth is consistent throughout

Look out for uneven page depths on facing rectos (right-hand pages) and versos (left-hand pages)

Page margins

Is the text area consistent throughout/adequate for printing/readability purposes?

Notes and cross-references

Ensure all notes are cued/numbered consecutively by chapter or through the book

Check that the note numbers given match the in-text note markers

Check each note appears on the appropriate page; if footnotes run over to the next page, there should be a short rule above the continuation (or other indicator as given by house style)

Check any cross-references in the text to chapters, figures or tables

Highlight any cross-references that still need to be completed

Ensure that in-text citations are presented according to preferred style and can be located in the book's references or bibliography

More layout problems to look out for:

Uneven spacing and leading

Irregular indentation of extracts

Crooked lines, especially in captions and headings

Wrong or inconsistent typefaces or type sizes

Bad word breaks that might trip the reader (e.g. cow-orker, trip-od)

Widows and orphans

More than two end-of-line hyphens stacked on top of each other

Paragraph indentation (first paragraphs in a chapter or section are often not indented)

Hyphens that should be dashes (e.g. when used parenthetically/in number ranges)

Double spaces after full stops (periods)

Rogue spaces at the beginning and end of paragraphs

Extracts

Check punctuation of sources

Check that extracts are set consistently (size, font, colour, position)

Query any missing acknowledgements/permissions

Figures, tables, maps, plates

Check that quality is acceptable

Is numbering correct and consistent?

Is the design consistent (font, size, colour, spacing)?

Check captions against lists of figures, tables or illustrations in the prelims

Check spelling, punctuation/grammar of figure labels and table column headings

Check alignment of columns in tables and positioning of ruled lines

Check that all illustrations provide a credit/source acknowledgement and query if any appear to be missing

End Matter

Notes

Ensure all notes are cued & numbered consecutively by chapter/through the book

If notes are grouped at the end of the book, check the text and the page numbers given alongside to ensure they match the main text and the contents page

Check that the note numbers given match the in-text note markers

If running heads include cross-references to page numbers, check these are correct, or fill in if required

Glossary

Is the list in alphabetical order?

Check that the layout is consistent

Afterword

Check that the spelling, layout and punctuation style are correct and consistent

Appendices

Check that the layout is consistent

Check that the numbering is consistent and matches any in-text cross references and the contents list

Bibliography/references

Is the list in alphabetical order?

Has the preferred reference style been used correctly and consistently?

Pagination and layout

Check that all text pages are numbered consecutively in the end matter

Check that size and position of page numbers is correct and consistent

Page depth

Check page depth is consistent throughout

Look out for uneven page depths on facing rectos and versos

Page margins

Text area is consistent throughout & adequate for printing & readability purposes

Running heads

Check that running heads match chapter heads (or abbreviated forms of them)

Check that running heads are correct and consistent (size, font, colour, position on page)

FINAL NOTES

Authors need to take their books through all the types of editing.

That doesn’t mean hiring third party professionals for each stage.

Writing groups, self-study courses, how-to books, and self publishing organizations are all great sources of editorial support.

If you decide to work with a professional, invest in one who can help you where you’re weakest:

You might be a great structural self-editor but prone to overwriting. Or you might have nailed line craft but need help with story development.

Pay attention to the order of play when it comes to revision.

Fixing plot holes at proofreading stage might damage previous rounds of editing.

Source

[aelinfireheartgalathynius]

I finally finished my four-volume ATYD layout!

The body text is larger than any formatted version I have found before, which is why it's four volumes instead of three. (The images I added to this post are just thumbnail previews, not meant to illustrate the relative size of the text.) I designed covers, front matter, chapter accents, and gave each character their own handwriting style for their letters!

I put a huge amount of work into this (for myself!) and I'm excited to share with anyone who is interested. The fanart and fonts I used are all credited (fanart in the front matter, fonts in the back) in case anyone wants to look them up.

These PDFs were specifically designed for printing as perfect-bound paperbacks, which is why the margins are larger on the sides toward the spine. There are all sorts of print-on-demand book sites out there that you can use to order your own copies. If you're handy with InDesign I can send you the .indd files if you'd like to modify them.

If anyone is super interested in having these in EPUB format (for e-readers), I can also share those versions, but they won't have the custom fonts because EPUB formats don't play well with those.

These are hosted on my Google Drive and I have no immediate plans to delete them, but I do recommend downloading them if you think you'll want them in the future, in case I need to delete them down the road.

Here are the files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1t1ZKdmkDDDUAYqY3Lp6EUilchX5UErlQ?usp=sharing

Tags for those who requested them: @likehephaestionwhodied, @lady-stardust-incarnate, @mxed-salad-greens, @cherryberry1403

[dieinct]

god i want nothing more in this life than to copyedit wikipedia articles

[allthingslinguistic]

But by the end of my five years [as a copy editor], I felt intellectually and psychologically worn down by the labor I logged on my biweekly timesheets. Whatever roller-rink of neurons helped me spot aberrations from convention had grown practiced and strong, and it was difficult to read any unconventional sentence without reflexively rearranging it into a more conventional form.

Something had shrunken and withered in me, for having directed so much of my attention away from the substance of the stories I read and into their surface. Few people in our office, let alone outside its walls, would notice the variation in line spacing, the fact that Jesus’ was lacking its last, hard “s,” or whatever other reason we were sending the proofs to be printed again—and if they did, who the fuck cared? [....]

I can’t help wondering, though, whether there wasn’t something insidious in the way we worked—some poison in our many rounds of minute changes, in our strained and often tense conversations about ligatures and line breaks, in our exertions of supposedly benign, even benevolent, power; if those polite conversations constituted a covert, foot-dragging protest against change, an insistence on the quiet conservatism of the liberal old guard, and if they were a distraction from the conversations that might have brought meaningful literary or linguistic change about. In fact, I sense myself enacting the same foot-dragging here.

It’s fun—it’s dangerously pleasing—to linger in the minutiae of my bygone copyediting days, even if, by the time I left that job to teach college writing full-time, I was convinced that “correcting” “errors” of convention most readers would never notice was the least meaningful work a person could possibly do. I’m writing this, however, to ask whether copyediting as it’s been practiced is worse than meaningless: if, in fact, it does harm.

*

Do we really need copyediting? I don’t mean the basic clean-up that reverses typos, reinstates skipped words, and otherwise ensures that spelling and punctuation marks are as an author intends. Such copyediting makes an unintentionally “messy” manuscript easier to read, sure.

But the argument that texts ought to read “easily” slips too readily into justification for insisting a text working outside dominant Englishes better reflect the English of a dominant-culture reader—the kind of reader who might mirror the majority of those at the helm of the publishing industry, but not the kind of reader who reflects a potential readership (or writership) at large.

A few years before leaving copyediting, I began teaching a scholarly article I still read with students today, Lee A. Tonouchi’s “Da State of Pidgin Address.” Written in Hawai’ian Creole English, or Pidgin, it asks whether what “dey say” is true: “dat da perception is dat da standard english talker is going automatically be perceive fo’ be mo’ intelligent than da Pidgin talker regardless wot dey talking, jus from HOW dey talking.” The article leaves many students questioning the assumptions they began reading it with: its effect is immediate, personal, and profound.

In another article I pair it with, “Should Writers Use They Own English,” Vershawn Ashanti Young answers Tonouchi’s implicit question, writing, “don’t nobody’s language, dialect, or style make them ‘vulnerable to prejudice.’ It’s ATTITUDES.” Racial difference and linguistic difference, Young reminds us, are intertwined, and “Black English dont make it own-self oppressed.”

It’s clear that copyediting as it’s typically practiced is a white supremacist project, that is, not only for the particular linguistic forms it favors and upholds, which belong to the cultures of whiteness and power, but for how it excludes or erases the voices and styles of those who don’t or won’t perform this culture. Beginning with an elementary school teacher’s red pen, and continuing with agents, publishers, and university faculty who on principle turn away work that arrives on their desk in unconventionally grammatical or imperfectly punctuated form, voices that don’t mimic dominance are muffled when they get to the page and also before they get there—as schools, publishers, and their henchmen entrench the idea that those writing outside convention are not writing “well,” and therefore ought not set their voices to paper at all. [...]

Like other emissaries of the powerful (see, e.g., the actual police), copy editors often wield what power they do have unpredictably, teetering between generous attention and brute, insistent force. You saw this in the way our tiny department got worked up over the stubbornness of an editor or author who had dug in their heels: their resistance was a threat, sometimes to our suspiciously moral-feeling attachment to “correctness,” sometimes to our aesthetics, and sometimes to our sense of ourselves. [...]

There’s a flip side, if it’s not already obvious, to the peculiar “respect” I received in that dusty closet office at twenty-two. A 2020 article in the Columbia Journalism Review refers casually to “fusspot grammarians and addled copy editors”; I’m not the only one who imagines the classic copy editor as uncreative, neurotic, and cold.

I want to say they’re the publishing professionals most likely, in the cultural imagination, to be female, but that doesn’t feel quite right: agents and full-on editors are female in busty, sexy ways, while copy editors are brittle, unsexed. Their labor nevertheless shares with other typically female labors a concern with the small and the surface, those aspects of experience many of us are conditioned to dismiss.

I’m willing to bet, too, that self-professed “grammar snobs” rarely come from power themselves—that there is a note of aspirational literariness in claiming the identity as such. [...]

It makes me wonder if, in renouncing my job when I left it—in calling copyediting the world’s least meaningful work—I might have been reenacting some of the literary scene’s most entrenched big-dick values: its insistence on story over surface (what John Gardner called the “fictional dream”), on anti-intellectualism but also the elitist cloak of it-can-never-be-taught. The grammar snob’s aspiration and my professor’s condescension bring to mind the same truism: that real power never needs to follow its own rules. [...]

Copyediting shares with poetry a romantic attention to detail, to the punctuation mark and the ordering of words. To treat someone else’s language with that fine a degree of attention can be an act of love. Could there be another way to practice copyediting—less attached to precedent, less perseverating, and more eagerly transgressive; a practice that, to distinguish itself from the quietly violent tradition from which it arises, might not be called “copyediting” at all; a practice that would not only “permit” but amplify the potential for linguistic invention and preservation in any written work?

--- Against Copyediting: Is It Time to Abolish the Department of Corrections? Helen Betya Rubinstein on Having Power Over More Than Just Commas

[theyuniversity]

In case your English/writing teacher doesn’t explain what their proofreading symbols mean, this is for you.

Website | Twitter |  Instagram | Medium | Pinterest | Ko-fi | eBook

[becoming-a-fox]

Just used one of these bad boys on this very site, which felt wrong and bad (and not in the good way).

Pro Tip: Before you go nuts with the semicolons, consider whether two shorter sentences could improve flow, readability, or emotional impact.

[theriu]

So I am slowly building my portfolio as a freelance editor, and I like the idea of working with self-publishing authors. But the thing is, I’m not sure how many indie authors really see the value of hiring an editor. I know it can seem expensive for someone supporting themselves, and the long-term value might not always be immediately clear.

That’s why I’d like to gain some insights from the general populace! Whether you’re a writer or reader, please tell me what YOU think:

Please share around, I’d like to get lots of writeblr input! And thanks for participating!

[beaft]

apologies for offering unsolicited advice but I know where you MIGHT be able to find copyediting work if you are interested

oh i am definitely interested! admittedly i'm kind of jaded at this point - i worked for the same editorial and translation agency for 7 years, only to get dropped without a word when the companies that typically commissioned us started pivoting to ai translation - but copyediting is still like,, the one thing i'm qualified to do lmao. please feel free to send me any pointers you have in these troubled times

[whattraintracks]

Okay folks. What if I did something wild and posted a bunch of old (non-tmnt) fics with minimal further editing??

[lookedlikethebins]

holiday party (plus one)

surprise! have a (belated) holiday oneshot written on a whim because i was thinking about our producer george x TA matty this past break! just wanted to write something fun, something sweet, and see what came up! enjoy this little glimpse! [set ~4months since meeting each other] ~3k words xo

Technically, where Matty lived was considered student housing. He could have friends over for parties, could bring boyfriends back after dates—had brought quite a few boyfriends (and a few one-date-only boys) back—without issue. Matty just couldn’t bring George back after any of their dates. The new hire in the archeology department was more of a local celebrity—known for being the youngest professor on faculty, just a year older than Matty—and not the same as the international kind. Matty had assured George that it wasn’t particularly personal. Simply put (although few things Matty said were to George) if George wanted any bit of his private life to remain within his own control, be his story to tell, he couldn’t be seen wandering around campus, alone or with Matty.

With Matty’s flat off-limits, naturally, George never found it presumptuous when Matty would text George after his evening class to see if George would help grade papers that seemed to show a negative correlation between level of coherency and number of words. Actually, George sort of counted on it. He liked that Matty would invite himself over; never asking if it was okay if he spontaneously dropped by, instead wondering if George simply wanted to keep him company—to which the answer was always yes—then arriving an hour later and knocking on George's front door with said papers and a bottle of wine.

One night in mid-December, George was impatient waiting for Matty’s post-class text. He was nervous Matty would be too exhausted to come over and George would have to figure out another way, and fast, to ask Matty to join him his label event the following night. He didn't think he could face it alone—

But Matty texted, as he always did: last student just left. forgot something in my office but then i’ll be over? x

Matty arrived within the hour, standing outside his door with twice as many papers and wine bottles.

“Final essays.” Matty answered the question George hadn’t yet asked. He pecked George on the lips—George’s preferred form of hello, if he was being honest—and hurried inside from the cold.

Matty looked exhausted, as he had the past few weeks of the term, but at least he’d recently shaved. George was beginning to worry—not only about his general well-being, but Matty’s ability to grow the patchiest beard but the most solid moustache. Meanwhile, George had success with neither and was losing his own ability to grow hair on his head before thirty. Some guys just had all the luck: the looks, brains, sense of humor, charm—

“Which class is this for again? You had three of them.” George said, shutting and locking the door. He flicked off the porch lights, expecting and inviting no other visitors now that Matty was there. He followed after Matty.

Matty was back in his usual spot at George’s kitchen counter, placing one wine bottle down between the barstools before shouldering off his worn, nearly-beaten, leather briefcase onto his seat. Matty always claimed the stool closest to the wall. He began leaving—most likely forgetting—pencils and pens on the lip of the counter that extended up the wall. Even though they’d only been seeing each other for four months, George figured it wouldn’t be too much of a gesture to wordlessly replace his napkin holder with a pencil cup.

“This was the intro class. Other classes finished last week.”

“Right, right.” George nodded. This classifier helped him very little; every class Matty described to George felt introductory. Made him feel like he was sitting in the desks himself, green and confused, just trying to scramble together some foundational understanding.

“I told them: short and succinct. Six pages maximum. They don’t have to show off—I’ll know by how they write it if they are copying, bullshitting, or absolutely clueless. I took the same class—same professor—during my very first term. I know the subject and am their intended audience. I told them seven times last week the only person they were writing to was me. Not Dr. Wriley, not even each other; just me. And you know what they did?” Matty exclaimed. He threw his one empty hand up in exasperation as he looked at the top-most essay in his other hand. “They all wrote me dissertations on Euripides. Which means that I will have no time to work on my own. It’s like they heard I cancelled my trip home and thought I was just planning on fucking about.” Matty rolled his eyes. He paused, lifting his eyebrows in consideration before scowling again. “George, I swear, they gave me so much to read, I’m going to have to call my optometrist again by New Year’s. I'm going to be blind before I graduate."

“I’m sorry, love.” George said, trying to translate the regretful, apologetic look on his face into his voice; Matty hadn’t looked up at him since they greeted each other at the door. With every second that Matty stayed distracted and frazzled, George began to think his entire plan that evening was not a good idea. Not what Matty wanted to be asked after such a taxing day. "Is there anything I can do—”

“—and I know there’s no way you’ve studied the Murray and Woodruff translations so I can’t exactly ask you to read any of these for me so…” Matty paused and grumbled away alternatives to his sentence. “It’s just going to be a very long night. You can help by keeping me awake.”

“Do you have to read them all tonight? Pretty sure you can let yourself have an hour of sleep. Maybe actually have dinner with your boyfriend,” George said. “Think I can convince you of at least that?”

Matty let the full stack of essays thud onto the counter and sighed. His shoulders fell with his exhale as he finally looked back at George. Before he could respond with his usual, quick-witted quip his eyes fell from George’s face to his clothes: his pristine, pressed shirt and polished belt buckle visible just above the countertop; his necklace resting in the gap left by his intentionally neglected shirt buttons; his rings dressing the fingers wrapped around the two stemmed wine glasses; the silver earring George had accidentally taken from Matty’s spot at his bathroom sink—he only ever wore one of them anyway.

“Wait. You’re all dressed up.” Matty seemed startled by the realization. He looked down at his own clothes—a sweater, slacks, and polo combo he wore frequently when he was running on little sleep; comfort and professionalism without having to think too much—and looked back up at George with a look of panic and apology. “You’re all dressed up and I—”

“Look very handsome.” George assured him. He placed both glasses down before grabbing a bottle of wine. They were two different labels: end of term gifts from faculty or perhaps an older, friendlier student. “As you always do—usually I’m the one in slippers and joggers when you come over. Your jumper’s got buttons on it. That’s pretty sophisticated for this place, you know that.” George was hoping Matty would laugh, but concern kept his expression tight and furrowed.

“Are you supposed to be going out—am I interrupting something? Fuck! Oh, shit. Is your stupid little elbow-rubbing holiday party tonight?” Matty gasped as he looked at his watch—before gasping and swearing again. “Fuck, I’m sorry. It’s not stupid, George. I didn’t mean it like that—” His words began to gain speed and George held out a gentle hand to hopefully slow him back down.

“Don’t be sorry. Label holiday dinner parties are stupid little elbow-rubbing events. You’re completely right. Per usual.” George laughed. “But, if it makes you feel better, it’s tomorrow. I didn’t skip anything. I’m exactly where I want to be.”

“Oh. Okay.” Matty nodded.

George knew what Matty looked like when he understood something—his face relaxed and he slightly offset his jaw while he dipped his head in slow, steady nods, blinking each time. Standing in his kitchen, Matty’s eyebrows were still knitted together; his eyes were looking between his papers, his keys, his bag, and the door; and he was pulling his bottom lip in between his teeth so harshly George was afraid he’d draw blood.

“Let’s try another one: would you believe I was waiting for you?” George chose to focus on the corkscrew in his hands rather than Matty’s face as he spoke. George was being sincere and he had been waiting for Matty’s arrival since he’d texted him about his first class around noon that day, but George wasn’t sure he was ready for the look on Matty’s face when he admitted the gesture—or if he knew how to minimize the look on his own face in case the act was too much or too soppy when really Matty just wanted to come in and have a quick rant and a hasty glass or two of wine, before sinking deep into his work. George's only job then would be to make sure by midnight Matty was at least no longer in creased trousers and a belt, lounging next to George in bed while he continued to read.

“You didn’t have to do that, George. It was an exam day—and that’s always a crapshoot as to when the students all finish, you know that.”

“But exam day means end of the term, right? Well, minus the grading.” George winced as he waved the removed cork toward the stack of essays. “But that’s something to celebrate, right? You’re free—for at least a little while.”

“Oh, I see. Celebrate, huh?” Matty caught George’s attention again with a short, low laugh. He looked at George with lifted eyebrows. “You know, I’ll never understand your pretense to get dressed up when your main goal is to get undressed. You keep doing it, George. Just answer the door with about fifty percent of an outfit and I’ll get the idea a lot faster. I’m a smart man. I can handle it.”

“Yeah, because you come over after an exhausting day of teaching and dealing with end of year administrative hoop-jumping and the first thing you want to deal with is me practically steering you right to the couch.”

Matty seemed to mull the idea over. “You know, I wouldn’t hate that… But, I guess you’re right. Maybe answering the door fully clothed is a better idea. Perhaps you are sensible, George. I keep forgetting. Thank you.” Matty reached over to touch George’s forearm holding the wine bottle—and about to pour the contents all over the counter. Matty was looking at George with an expression that always took him by surprise. Made him freeze in place and thought. Made him feel in awe, for a split (hopefully) undetectable moment, of the life he’d found himself in.

Matty’s eyes were locked on George’s, not moving even as their moment of connection drug on into an extended silence while George scrambled for his next charming response—just trying to keep up. Matty’s smile was subtle, almost timid, compared to what George knew to be his full, squinted grin. It was all in Matty’s cheeks, in the subtle roundness at their peaks, just under his eyes. A small hint for George; the single location that was a giveaway to George, in an otherwise seemingly neutral expression to everyone else, he was being seen in a startling private and intimate way, even when they were alone.

George knew, once he handed over the full wine glass, he had a limited amount of time before his window of opportunity would close and the night would shift over to a blur of Matty growing chatty and trying to explain the faults of his students papers—and hopefully a few successes—while George gulped down his own wine and sounds of confusion; both of them giggling as the papers were forgotten and empty wine glasses nearly clattering to the floor as Matty climbed to sit on the edge of the counter, legs on either side of George and feet resting on the horizontal back rung of George’s chair; George only wanting to listen to the way his name sounded when being gasped and sucked in through clenched teeth—

“Actually," George began speaking before he could talk himself out of it. "there is a reason—there’s something I wanted to ask you.” George came around and sat down in his chair at the counter. Matty moved his bag and joined George, taking the other wine glass with a quiet thank you.

“Oh, yeah?” Matty kept the subtlety to his smile but let his eyes change from even and gentle to intense and direct. George was going to lose his courage—because he definitely didn’t have the will to resist Matty, sitting in his kitchen without any early classes the next morning, looking sharp and clever in his work clothes, freshly shaved, and looking at George like that without even a drop of wine in him. “What else is there you could ask me to do, George? If you’ve thought of it and I haven’t tried it, you’ll really surprise me.”

“Would you like to go with me tomorrow?” George said. He took a gulp of wine from his glass. “Be my date to my stupid little elbow-rubbing dinner.”

Matty’s confusion returned faster than before. “Wait—to the label holiday party? W-Work? You want me to go to a work function with you?”

“You asked me if I wanted to go to a faculty dinner the other week.”

“Yeah, because half the department is over sixty-five, doesn’t actually know my name, and hasn’t listened to any music that came out after the year they first started getting laid. They probably would’ve thought you taught there too! But your work… that’s a real dinner, George. Those are important people.”

“And so are you.” George said. He hated how immediate his response was, if only for how canned it sounded. He’d already thought of each of Matty’s arguments; he wanted to bring Matty to a party filled with people that pretended to know him best. If they were going to market him and his personal work (and personal life), they could at least know just who that involved. “My work is important to me, but you are too, equally so. I don’t see the issue. Sort of a natural combination, I’d think.”

“George,” Matty said with a quiet sigh of pity. “I barely knew who you were when we met. I-I should not be in a room with… with… pioneers of culture. I will make a fool out of myself, and worse, you.”

“You won’t make a fool out of me, Matty. You forget I’ve been attending these things for ten years. I used to bring ‘girlfriends’ with me. Absolutely no one has made me look more like an idiot than me at important, career-defining label functions, let me assure you.” George said with a laugh. He reached over to place a hand on Matty’s leg. “I know this is a big ask though, coming to something like this. But it’s a close-door dinner party—just, well, I guess they’re my co-workers. The boys will be there, definitely. But if you don’t want to—”

“I didn’t say that. Never said I didn’t want to go, but...” Matty placed his hand on top of George’s, his finger mindlessly tracing the ring on George’s pinky. “Am I really the person you want to bring along and introduce to... genuinely your entire social circle? Social and work circle? Talk about pissing where you eat, George.”

“Matty, I’m pretty sure everyone on the label being my friends is the example of pissing where I eat. Not bringing you to a party.” George said, shaking his head. “People asked me if you were coming, if you must know.”

“Probably because they don’t want me to be there—” Matty cut himself off with a long sip of wine.

“Matty,” With two fingers, George carefully grabbed the stem of his glass and eased it away from his mouth—without spilling it down the front of him. “First off, even if someone didn’t want you to be there—for whatever reason: you’re new, you’re not industry, you’re a man—I’d still like you to be there. Me. As my date. Not theirs... If you wanted, of course.”

Matty paused and began to bite his thumbnail. “Are you sure no one’s going to mind if I’m just… sitting there in the corner, awkward and quiet?”

“Babe, what do you think I do at these things?” George laughed. He waited for Matty to smile, his mouth preoccupied and unable to chew his cuticle, before using one finger to lower Matty's hand back down to his own lap, where George was holding his other hand. “It’ll be nice to finally have someone join me in the corner.”

Matty inhaled slowly, squeezing George’s hand before speaking again. “I’d love to go.”

“Yeah?” George’s relief—his joy—came out as incredulity. As the immediate questioning of Matty’s decision—and accidental chance to rescind his response. George held his breath but didn't have to wait very long.

“Yes! Yes, I want to go with you. Corner and all.” Matty managed to say before George kissed him.

In a breathless giggle, hands resting on George’s shoulders, Matty said he was very lucky there was a wall behind him.

[ladytabletop]

thinkin bout that "too many hats in game design" post.

I love to collaborate. most of my game design career has been collaborative. the problem is everyone's a game designer, and far fewer people are layout artists and editors and marketers and the like (in my experience). and at a certain point of collaboration, if you're the only one with a certain skillset, you ONLY get to use that skillset and there's no time for anything else.

not sure where I'm going with this except that I've been thinking about how much I love layout design but how I also don't love it enough to give up the part of game design that is actually designing the games.

[drlinguo]

Source: Pullum 1984: Punctuation and human freedom

[finnlongman]

A really important part of learning to finish drafts is learning not to agonise over a sentence that's bothering you. Rather than spending hours trying to tweak the wording of one line, just highlight it to come back to and move on. Get to the end. Finish the book.

Unfortunately, I learned this lesson a little too well, and still find myself highlighting things to come back to, even though I am now at the copyedits stage, which is pretty much the end of the line. Thus I am having to deal with all the sentences my previous self highlighted to come back to, and somehow creating more of them that I'll just have to deal with in a week's time.

"Ugh, this one's hard, come back to it later," only works until you hit later and realise you've got nothing but hard problems to solve.

[james-spooky]

editing is so funny cause it’s either like “damn i wrote that???” or “wtaf is this” and there’s no in between

[creaturebloom]

if everyone can please keep their fingers crossed that i get this freelance gig (which i haven't done freelance stuff in a long time) that would be sooooo nicey of you ♥