As a proud member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), I've been attending its conferences ever since I became self-employed. I've just returned from this year's conference refreshed, reinvigorated and absolutely exhausted. They're a fabulous way of connecting with other editorial professionals and embedding my continuing professional development. Basically, I spent three days chatting to my friends and sometimes learning stuff. 
All conferences have their obscure traditions, and one of the SfEP's traditions is for a choir of members to sing about editing at the gala dinner. I know that sounds weird but bear with me. New lyrics are set to an out-of-copyright tune each year, and this time I turned my muse to the challenge, in the form of a psalm. The choir performed it brilliantly and the audience laughed in the right places, which was a relief. So here, by popular demand, are the lyrics, which are not, of course, based on any situation or person, living or dead...

[Tune 1, minor key]
1. Deep from my desk have I sworn about you, O Word : You crashed when I forgot to save you.
2. I cry out into the darkness : Why did I take this job?
3. Blessed is the editor who resteth at close of day : With all their work complete.
4. My time fleeth into the night : Tonight the deadline looms; caffeine is my only friend.
5. For the author loved the text box tool and used it well : Along with Comic Sans.
6. I am stuck fast in the deep mire of poor grammar : I must hack through the dark forest of comma splices and errant semicolons before weariness overcomes me.
7. I am become a stranger unto my family : Even an alien unto my unkempt children.
8. I am become feral and my office is as a wilderness : Why did I take this job?
 
[Tune 2, minor key]
9. Save my work! : For now the proofs have come in : Which were due last week.
10. I must download the mighty PDFs : And gird myself to wrangle reams of typeset tosh.
11. For while this book has suffered reproof after reproof : Its press date draws not nigh.
12. And lo! Now I must mark up the longest sentence I have ever seen, which has no clear content no comma no colon no full point nor any point at all as far as I can tell except to confound me in my state of trouble and to vex me to new levels of vexation immeasurable as it goes on and on and on until the end of time or maybe even longer : A bit like this job.
13. I am weary of reading, my eyes are dry: My sight faileth me for working so long upon these proofs.
14. The rates are low and my spirits lower: Again, I say, why did I take this job?
15. O yes, I was flattered when the client emailed unto me : When they said it was me and only me in whom they put their trust.
16. Why did I believe them when they said it was an easy job? : I should have been suspicious when someone said: “Do you know this client? PM me” in the forums.
 
[Tune 3, major key]
17. And yet. There is a strange beauty in the ordering of text : A sense of satisfaction when that tricky phrase untangles.
18. Guiding the typescript from darkness into light is a joy beyond riches : Which is just as well because the client has lost my invoice.
 
19. Glory be to PerfectIt and to Saint Google : and to EAE Backroom.
20. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be : Work without end. Amen.

Spend any time with me and a phrase you're likely to hear (other than "How can the dishwasher be full already?") is "I heard [insert fascinating fact] on a podcast".

According to the fittingly named Podcast Addict phone app, I’ve spent 31 days and 22 hours listening to podcasts over the past couple of years, which includes 15 hours and 16 minutes last week alone.

That doesn't mean I spent my leisure time staring at a wall with my ears wide open. It means I spent 15 hours and 16 minutes cooking, tidying, putting on my make-up, driving and, yes, dealing with the dishwasher, while accompanied by the spoken word. It’s just like listening to the radio – any task that would otherwise require me to listen to my own thoughts can be carried out while I listen to other people’s.
 
What is a podcast?
It’s a form of on-demand audio media. Many people, at least in the UK, seem to think that podcasts are simply radio shows you download from the BBC website. Well, some are, but you’re missing out if that’s the extent of your podcast experience. The majority are made specifically as podcasts, usually as part of a series, and are researched, recorded and produced for listeners to access via their computer, tablet or phone. You can download individual episodes to listen to when you want, or you can stream them if you have a reliable wifi connection.

Episodes can be any length, from 5 minutes to (in rare cases) a couple of hours. Most on my playlist are between 20 and 50 minutes long – again, like a radio show.

Anyone can produce and upload a podcast although, believe me, the quality varies. BBC domination aside, I generally find American podcasts to be much more engaging and professional than British ones - the Radiotopia suite springs to mind. A downside is that most podcasts keep stopping for adverts from their ‘sponsors’, which is a bit tedious if you’re used to the ad-free BBC or Netflix. But apparently UK listeners like me are happy to put up with such ads, as long as the podcasts remain free to access and the ads are relevant to the subjects being discussed. (Some podcast presenters put their own entertaining spin on the ads they’re asked to read, integrating the ads with the show itself – thus reducing the chances of the listener skipping forward to deliberately miss yet another plug for Squarespace or MeUndies or ZipRecruiter.) (Apparently brand recognition works.)
 
Who listens to podcasts?
Well, who watches TV or plays football? Anyone who wants to. Anyone who can. Recent(ish) statistics suggest that 40% of the American population has listened to a podcast, although in Britain it’s only 24% – perhaps fans of the spoken word in this country are diverted by BBC Radio 4 or Five Live, though in the US, NPR seems offer a parallel service to that of the BBC in the UK.

Some research suggests podcast listeners are ‘loyal, affluent and educated’ – and not necessarily young. I know a man in his mid-70s who likes nothing better than to plug in his headphones for some introvert time with the latest episode of his favourite science show.

Far from being the latest newfangled fad, podcasts are really pretty mainstream. They've been around for quite a while by today’s technology standards, gaining momentum in 2004 to the extent that ‘podcast’ was declared 'word of the year' by the New Oxford American Dictionary in 2005. There’s even an International Podcast Day™ on 30 September. No wonder the advertisers are so keen to jump on board.
 
What can podcasts be about?
Part of that mainstream appeal comes from having more than 250,000 different podcast series to choose from (and those are outdated 2015 figures). Inevitably, content covers almost any subject you can think of. A recent iTunes chart indicates that British listeners are most likely to download podcasts in the genres of sport, news/politics and comedy (all usually produced by the ubiquitous BBC). Sport and politics not being topics on which I wish to spend my leisure time, I subscribe to 13 of the top 100 podcasts listed, which is not many considering I follow nearly 50 overall but quite a lot considering how many thousands of series I could choose to hear.

What (other) podcasts do I like?
These days, I never listen to the radio, or watch ‘live’ TV for that matter. For me, the appeal of on-demand media is the ability to control the content. I generally listen to factual or autobiographical shows. In the mood for on-stage anecdotes? Play The Moth or Mortified. Hungry? Play The Sporkful. Fasting? Play The Obesity Code. Fancy a bit of contemporary socioeconomic theory (and who doesn’t)? Play Freakonomics.

I'm a novel-reading dervish but perhaps I’ve just not discovered a decent fiction podcast yet – most scripted shows are ‘docudrama’ style, often based on the discoveries of a (fictional) investigative reporter, a trope that gets tiresome pretty quickly. The ones that involve real acting are even worse – country house murder mystery Deadly Manners may feature the fabulous (and fabulously different) talents of Kristen Bell, Ru Paul and Denis O’Hare but even that stellar cast couldn’t actually make it any good.
 
OK but how does this tie in with editing?
It doesn’t, directly. I just love podcasts.

You might have noticed that I’ve not mentioned any shows that are specifically aimed at, or about, editing the written word. That’s partly because I’ve not found one I want to listen to. If that's what you're looking for, my SfEP colleague John Espirian has some suggestions, as has The Bookseller here and here. My favourite shows are not obviously related to my profession but, in my opinion, are just as immersed in narrative, structure and storytelling. I'll describe some of those in more detail in my next post (Episode 2, in podcast parlance, and, yes, it will include That One).

Here are some ways my listening habit influences my work. 

• It improves my general knowledge. You never know when the history of barbed wire, the economics of ticket sales or the fact that certain species of baby spider eat their mothers will come in handy. 
• It increases my awareness of other cultures, and (because I listen to so many American shows), my awareness of how other cultures view my own. Admittedly, I roll my eyes at the frequent, outdated criticisms of British food (Gastropod and The Sporkful, I’m looking at you) or mentions of ‘British accents’, but it’s nevertheless illuminating to appreciate that stereotyping works both ways.
• I spend so much time with the written word that spoken language provides a useful balance, with its own layers of meaning and surprise. For example, I’m a little obsessed with the way Americans (at least those on certain podcasts) pronounce ‘parmesan’ (‘PAR-ma-jorrn’) and ‘Chile’ (‘Chill-LAY’). And did you know that ‘pho’ (as in soup) should be spoken as ‘phar’?
• Podcasts are collated, compiled and edited just like books. Producers choose what to keep and what to remove. Like books, they have tropes and structures that we, the listeners, come to expect, from an introductory clip to capture our attention to carefully selected background music. John August, in the first episode of Launch, does a fine job of identifying some of these. There are even the equivalent of celebrity authors (presenters) like Guy Raz, Roman Mars and Lea Thau. (Not to mention celebrity, or at least recurring, guests – enthusiastic experimental psychologist Charles Spence seems to pop up everywhere.)

Become a podcast addict like me
In my next post (Episode 2), I’ll recommend my top ‘loosely related to language’ podcasts. And then, in the post after that (Episode 3; I did warn you I’m obsessed with podcasts), I’ll recommend other shows that I simply enjoy.

Inspired? You can usually listen online via the source website or, if you’re away from your computer, download an app (there are lots) for your phone or tablet and subscribe to whatever takes your fancy. Simply Google a subject you’re interested in, along with the word ‘podcast’, and off you go.

As an example, I just tried typing ‘ukulele podcast’ and found OokTown, which has more than 60 intriguingly titled episodes... 

Excuse me, I’m just off to empty the dishwasher.

I'm going to type this post without going back for corrections. That means typos, soelling mistakes and badly expressed sentences will all be left instacvt (that was supposed to read 'intact'). I'm a pretty fast typer (typist?) this days but that foens't mean I'm accurate so i do spend a lot of time deleting or retreating back to where I was to correct the typo wit its little red wavy line that's, well, waving at me. There are four so far, plus another typos that (oh, five) that hasn't been fagged (six!) flaggrd up because they are actual words that are spelled (spelt? which is also a type of flour so I'm not sure why that's been underlined) correcty (correctly) but of course are wrong in this context. If I were (was?) writing this in Word (whch I'm not) then running a spellcheck without reading through it manually (I think that's a sexit word (! sexist, obviously - sexit isn't an appropriate word for this post) but there are few gender-neutral equivalents) (Where was I?) running a spellcheck without reading through it myself would only pick up, what, 85% of the errors and of course also wouldn't flag up these long, rambling sentences and the glut of brackets that, some might say, make the text difficult to read.
Another thng I can't do in theis post is go back to restructure sentences or put in additional thoughts. Which now makes me wary that I've started this new train of though too early. Perhaps I should have developed the idea of how spellcheck isn't enough (hmm. shoulf I vapitalise / capitalise 'spellcheck'? Normally I'd check to see if it's a brand mae , argh, brand name pf Microsoft. I've just checked - no, it's a genric / generic term but it'soften spelt / spelled as two words, depending on the source. That's interesting: my software has underlined 's;pelt' (or 'spelt' actually) but not 'it'soften' - is that a real word? What a shame you, the reader. won't be able to see all the red squiggles when this is posted. I could do a screnshot. Hang on a mo...

I have to admit that I made a typo (I typod. Typo'd. Typoed?) while saving the image file - but the thought of seeinf 'Uncorrected scrennshot' every time I open that folder annoyed me so much that I corrected it. Anyway, as you can see, there are plenty of red lines, which I would normally acoorect / correct ht the 'lazy' way by right clikcing on the word and selecting the correct spelling from the optionsd. Obviously, I do know how to spell those words but it's a little quicker to get it done automatically than to go and do it myself, which in any case, as you can guess from my lack of typing skills so far, may introfuce more errors. But, stop a moment! Is 'spelt' actually wrong in this context? Only if you're AMerician, apparently. But I'm not American so it's correct. My Weebly spellchecker (or possibly my Chrome spellchecker) accepts only American spellings. I can probably change the settinfs to a British English dictionary but, If US English is the default, how common is it for people to do that? Obviously, I use the English British (argh) fictionary in Word, at least, if that's what's requiredfor the work I'm doing. (Rest assured, clients!) What wlse? Ah, 'fagged' instead of 'flagged' isn't underlined at all - that could be an embarrassing mistake incertain contexts. And 'pf' is apparently a 'real' word. Really? This link suggests it's short for perfective aspect (Pasted from the link: "The perfective aspect is a feature of the verb which denotes viewing the event the verb describes as a completed whole, rather than from within the event as it unfolds. ") Oh, of course. That's such a common abbreviation , evidently, that it's not worth drawing attention to it, according to the spellchecker (spell checker?). Then why does 'perfective' now have a squiggly line under it? It is, apparently, perfectly acceptable, even if only linguits / linguists know what it means.
I'm putting in a header here to break up the text
Anyway. You can see my point. you pobABLY (darn caps lock being so close to A) you probably can't see my point all that clearly, but you get the gist. (I need to improve the formatting of that header but I can't go back anf do it, huh.)
To summarise in a handy 10-pojnt list that's so beloeved / beloved of bloggers:

1. Do use a spellcheck. It's pretty hanfy for identifying typos and spelling mistakes.
2. Right click on the underlined word to bring up the spelling options.
3. Don't kust / just use a spellcheck though. You also need to read through your text to spot any errors that software can't pick up.
4. It's even better if you get someone else to read it. You know where I'm going with this. That's where editors come in (yay!) but of course any fresh eye us / is likely to pick yp on things you eon't. Won't.
5. Writing takes time. Not just the dashing off your rhoughts paert, but also going back to check and edit and double-check and re-edit and rewrite and sometimes restructure.
6. You also need to think about overall formatting ans structure. Much of this text is pretty dense, stream-og-counsciousness stuff, wnich some people may find hard to read. And ofcourse people scan text online too so a big block of text is not only intimidating but also inunviting. Uninviting.
7. You could, of course, argue that you can still read and understandf this post, even with all the errors and confusion. Well, thanks for your confiendence in my abiilites. I have honestly just dashed this off and havne't gone back to read anything. Who needs edfitors and proofreaders, eh? But , out of context, dfes it look profesisonal? If this text was in your book or wevsite or marketing brochure, would you really be happy to sendf it out? So here I am risking my reputaiton to make a particular point. You're welcome.
8. Even editors and writers (that's me) need to edit themselves. It's not easy. It's a skill. But it's a skill that everyone can learn to some extent. We editorial progessionals (hmm, progressionals. Are those editors who are happy to accept that language changes and some zombie rules can be forgotten?) professiohals have just spent a long time honing and improving our ability to so it. To do it. We even enjoy it. My fingers are ithcing to correct everything here. How lovely it would look. But you'd jave have know idea (argh, no idea, that's embarrassing) how much work would have been put into the corrections. We're very modest, we (us?) editors.
9. I'm afraid now that I'll be deliverabltt / delibr / deliberately not correcting anything all day. Better get back into Edit Mode.
10. That elusive 1oth / tenth point. Here's an idea - wat / what would p you put as number 10? Tell me in the comments below! (see what I did there?)

​Signing off with a badly typed conclusion. Actually, that looks OK. Better end while I'm ahead. Bye!

Still playing with your fidget spinner? Keep up! The newest craze is painting rocks and leaving them around town. Yes, really. It's not litter because it's art.
My county, Norfolk, is, as usual, right on trend. The Norfolk Rocks (UK) Facebook group has gathered more than 34,000 members in just a couple of months, and the feed is full of photos of happy children, and almost as many happy adults, brandishing their painted treasures. Whether decorated with toddlers' scribbles or full-blown works of art, you'll find the stones in parks, in shops and on sea walls, ready for the lucky finder to admire, keep or rehide (a word that's too new for spellcheck to recognise).

It's got me thinking about beauty and art and shared experiences and how much fun it is to paint a stone despite having no artistic skill whatsoever.

And it's also made me reconsider 'serendipity', that delightful word that perfectly summarises the joyful happenstance (another delightful word) of discovering a pretty stone in the street.

​The OED Online defines serendipity as 'the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way'. Merriam Webster's definition is even more appropriate: 'the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for'. It goes on to describe the rather, well, serendipitous story of its origins as both a word and a concept. In January 1754, serial letter writer and linguistic inventor Horace Walpole described the discovery of an interesting fact as:

'... almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word… I once read a silly fairy tale, called “The Three Princes of Serendip” [Sri Lanka]: as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of...'

It's rather handy for dictionary compilers that Walpole not only appears to have created a new word but also took the trouble to claim the credit for it.
​
As a (serendipitous) aside, Merriam Webster lists other words that were first recorded in 1754, including avocado pear, consensual, disgusting, extravaganza, face mask, polymorphous, postbox, prima donna, self-importance, unsportsmanlike and washing machine. One wonders how they communicated in 1753.

​Anyone would think we’d got our work/life balance pretty well sorted. After all, seven female self-employed editors had taken a weekend away from our usual home responsibilities to gather around a kitchen table in a chic London suburb (one remotely), leaving partners, pets and kids to sort themselves out while we discussed our careers. Of course, you could also argue that we were missing precious family time by choosing to work on a Saturday, but we all felt liberated by the opportunity to focus on ourselves for once.
​
So the discussion about work/life balance, coming at the end of a long, hot, productive day, was well timed. But first things first – what exactly does it mean? And does it matter? Work is part of life but has anyone ever, honestly, achieved the perfect balance with their personal time? After all, we would all far rather work from home, with all its domestic distractions, than in a noisy, stuffy office with a two-hour commute.

When life gets in the way of work
Clearly, enjoying your work is key to making long hours easier to manage. Sometimes writing a blog post or proofreading an intriguing book doesn’t even feel like proper work. But then there are the endless, stressful, troublesome projects that take forever to disentangle and straighten out. Either way, it’s easy to blink up at the clock and wonder if that time should have been invested in our families instead. Will the kids’ memories of their childhood be their mum, harassed, at her desk, snapping ‘Make your own dinner!’ when they poke their heads round the door?
​
Perhaps it’s because we’re women. Perhaps, in allowing ourselves to take charge of domestic routines, our generation has failed to take forward the lessons of feminism. Even if our partners willingly contribute to the household chores (and, on the whole, they do) we still help to perpetuate the myth that we can achieve it all. Is it entirely fair to complain about our husbands’ full-laundry-basket-blindspot or should we take responsibility for deskilling our men when we insist on doing all the ‘wife work’?

It's time to take control
Whatever our personal circumstances, we agreed that it was the ‘life’ part of work/life balance that’s often the problem. We all hate those pick ‘n’ mix days that involve short bursts of work interspersed with personal obligations. Whatever we often tell ourselves, work is far more controllable than the randomness of our personal lives. But how can we control it without obsessing about losing income? Well, we had plenty of ideas:

1. Be organised. Calculate the number of hours you have available in a day or week and be realistic about what you can fit into them. Factor in how much money you want or need to earn and how much time do you want to devote to that. You may realise that you need to increase your rates or improve your client-base.
2. Create routines, even minor ones. If you know that you are going to empty the dishwasher each morning before you start work, the act of putting away the plates may get you into work mode. It’s not always easy when deadlines loom – one of the group hadn’t managed to go running each day before lunch as she'd planned, and Gillian Michaels on my pre-breakfast exercise DVD rarely gets the chance to shout at me – but at least introducing some structure helps to identify what you’re aiming for.
3. Be confident. Say no more often, don’t apologise for yourself and practise negotiation – “Can I deliver that on Monday instead of Friday?” “I can’t do that on x date but I am available on y date. Is that any good?” Even when you plan not to overbook yourself, projects may run late and all come in at once.
4. Encourage children to do their own tasks. It’s often surprising what they’re capable of achieving, given the chance. Even tiny kids can manage simple tasks and, when you’re sweeping up the shards of another dropped plate, tell yourself they’re learning life skills.
5. Share tasks with your partner. It’s often surprising what they’re capable of achieving, given the chance.
6. Take time off if you need to. Staying at your desk when you’re ill or distracted by a family crisis will reduce the quality of your work and be more likely to lose you clients than if you tell them you’re unable to work in the first place. They’ll understand the impact of personal issues and, if not, maybe you don’t want to work with them anyway.
7. Book holidays, stick to them and turn your email off while you’re away from your desk.
8. Take regular stock. Make a regular note of your successes, praise from clients or colleagues and jobs you’ve enjoyed. It’s heartening to realise how many positives you can collect when you allow yourself.
9. Set goals for the next six months and post them to yourself at the deadline (yes, using an actual stamp).
10. Don’t set yourself up to fail. Be realistic about what you can do within your own circumstances and try not to compare yourself to others who, in any case, are probably struggling with the balance just as much as you. If you keep waiting for something better to happen, it won’t – and constantly striving and wishing for that indefinable something won’t make you happy either.

In short, we must fight our inertia and take time out of that endless busy-work, even if it’s just to identify exactly what needs to change in our current routine. But don’t beat yourself up about what you haven’t done. Nobody can do it all but everybody can find ways of making life work for them.
Now, I’d better go and do some proper work. It’s either that or hang up the washing.