I spent Friday working on my CV, a harrowing experience that sent me right over the edge. Well, maybe it wasn�t the CV so much as simultaneously trying to figure out how much my time is worth, thus enabling me to quote rates to anyone who options my services. After sending out a scattering of questions to other freelance workers, I�ve eventually settled on a price for my time. I also have a �relevant experience� CV which, when I look at it again after the weekend, looks pretty good.

Since then, it has amused me no end to think while working on something, �This is worth X dollars of my time.� Did it take three hours? Then it�s worth X multiplied by 3. Was it a rush job for someone that took two hours? Then it was worth (X times 1.5) multiplied by 2.

This has really, really, helped me understand the value of my time and energy. It has also helped me understand that my volunteer work is truly a gift, and that I absolutely will not accept any further volunteer editing/communications work. On top of the freelance work I do, and the work for myself� well, it�s no wonder that I shut down every once in a while and panic. It never seems like much when I agree to do it, but breaking work and time down like this has really shown me that fitting it all in makes life into a crazy quilt.

Now that I understand that my time is worth money, I can be, well, picky about what I choose to do. Investing time in a project of my own that will pay off in the future is one thing, but pouring valuable time into other peoples� projects? They�d better be darned important to me.

A wonderful line that I just had to share:

“Unrequited love. Very nice. Just like our twelve other songs about unrequited love, now with ten percent more sorrowful ravens.”

I loved it!

The author? Oh. Emily Horner. Yes, the Emily Horner. Remember her? Send her good wishes, because she’s lost the original notebooks in which she wrote over 20,000 words of a story, a situation I have had nightmares about in the past myself. The recent past, actually, now that I think about it, although it’s been an ongoing fear since I began my first novel over ten years ago.

Every once in a while, I’m reminded of why I choose to teach.

Last night, for example, was the first of a two-part workshop. In complete contrast to the last time I led it, this group was dynamic, positive, and communicative, as opposed to the last bunch. All in all, it was a terrific evening – and we get to do it again next Thursday. Woo-hoo!

More proof that teaching can be rewarding: the students in my Monday night class secretly all got together and bought us the huge 6’x4′ whiteboard that we had been planning to invest in to replace the tiny 3’x2′ board we’ve been using in class. Now, that’s special.

The universe answers the question I asked aloud two days ago:

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is being released on DVD on April 11.

More thoughts on editing:

It occurs to me that if I were being paid the going rate for all the editing I’ve been doing this past week, I’d be making money.

Hmm.

You know, the problem with editing is that it�s someone else�s work.

As an editor, your goal is to make the story or the abstract of the text more accessible to future readers. You have a double responsibility: to the story or abstract itself, and to the author.

Where do you draw the line? When do you cross a word out, or move it elsewhere, or leave it as an example of the author�s style? When do you take the responsibility of taking that away from the author and doing it differently for the good of the story, or the text?

Presumably the author has given this work to you because s/he trusts you to help make it better. (Or you�re being paid to do it, which means that people trust you enough to remunerate you for your skills!) As an editor, you�ve been given a certain authority. Maybe I�m just authority-shy, but with every change I make I have to stop from second-guessing myself. I know I�m making the sentence easier to read, but am I taking away from the author�s personal style?

Trust me, if I wanted to rewrite a text and remove all trace of an author�s style, I could. So I know that I�m holding back; I know that I�m not obliterating the original author�s presence. A good editor shouldn�t be noticeable when you read the finished text. There should be a single voice apparent.

I suppose it�s just a degree of interpreting personal space. You know � how close you stand to someone at a bus stop, or on the metro. I want to give the author their room. It�s their work, after all. If I change a sentence, or the order of a set of words, or substitute another term for something that is unclear � how close can I get before I�m standing on top of them?

Of course, even just being aware of the potential for overstepping my mandate and questioning every edit that I make means that I�ll probably never have to really be concerned about suffocating the author. Which is sort of consoling, in the general overview of things, but not enough when you�re picking up the correction tape to correct your own edit.