RWKP
Hitting the whole list today! I spent 28 December 2024 - 1 January 2025 at a cabin near Summersville, WV, for a writing retreat organized by a friend. We were a group of five people and two dogs (plus a local dog who visited us a couple of times). It was a remarkably productive four days.
Reading:
James, by Percival Everett. I inhaled this book. I read the first page on 29 December and finished the book on New Year’s Eve. It’s an excellent book, beautifully written. Yes, of course it is…it won the National Book Award for 2024, and received a tremendous amount of well-deserved critical acclaim.
The next novel on my to-read list is Embassytown, by China Mieville, which has been on my bookshelf for a long time. I purchased it at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle, shortly after it was released in paperback in 2012. This means I’ve kept the book in my collection for thirteen years, during which time I’ve lived in four different places in Seattle and two in Pittsburgh. It’s time to either read it or drop it off at one of the many Little Free Libraries within walking distance of my current address.
I’m still reading You Can’t Make This Stuff Up, by Lee Gutkind, and Novelist as a Vocation, by Haruki Murakami. (Note: In my post dated 17 December, I mistakenly identified the Gutkind book I’m reading as The Art of Creative Nonfiction. I own a copy of this book, but haven’t started reading it yet.)
Drew and I listened to a big chunk of All Fours, by Miranda July while driving to and from West Virginia. I think we got to the beginning of Part 3, so we still have quite a bit to go. Another coincidence: this book was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
Writing:
I’m still working on the two pieces I mentioned last time (one about photosynthesis and one about the Darwin Awards). I made progress on both while in West Virginia, and should be able to finish them by the end of this month. I think they’ll each end up at around 5,000 words.
Knitting: Alas, I am not knitting much right now. I have a few different WIPs going, but I’m taking a break because I have developed “Texter’s Thumb,” a.k.a. de Quervain’s tenosynovitis. I’ve had it before…I know how to treat it…it just takes time.
Planning: I am looking for nonfiction and academic copyediting work, so I’m finalizing my resume and making a list of places to send it. I’m going to start with book packaging companies and expand my search scope from there. I’ll be honest: writing a resume to market myself as a copyeditor is challenging. I have over fifteen years of experience teaching academic writing and research to undergraduates. I understand, in theory, that my teaching skills are highly transferrable to the work of academic editing. As a teacher, I essentially did several different kinds of editing (developmental and line editing, copyediting, fact checking, proofreading - and quite a bit of coaching) with each individual student - and I taught hundreds of students. Unfortunately, I’m still struggling with residual imposter syndrome from not finishing my PhD. So frustrating.
