Editorial Notes = clarifying information, additional insight, annotations

Hiya Reader,

The following issue is a reader favorite from the Editorial Notes archives, to keep your inbox company while Helene is on sabbatical at her writing fellowship. She'll be back next week with a new edition!

I have no idea where it comes from, but I am attracted to unusual timepieces. As much as I collect anything tangible, I suppose I collect clocks. (Related: the Pomodoro Technique is helpful for many creatives, and if you'd like to try it, here's an online timer for you.)

One of my most prized possessions is a stately 1824 Clitheroe grandfather clock inherited from my downsizing parents. He has a name, of course, as all beloveds must: the oh-so-original Clocky. When we move, he travels in his own custom made wood box, which someone inevitably mistakes at first for a coffin. "Yep, that's just Grandpa," we grin. "We take him everywhere."

As long as Clocky is wound every week—which I faithfully do each Saturday—he continues to keep almost perfect time, rung out each hour in chiming reminiscent of a train whistle, especially echoey and attention-demanding in our brick and concrete home.

To remember which direction the crank must be turned, my father taught me: "Always rotate clockwise. You can never turn time back." Some metaphors are too obvious to parse.
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Example of the Week

Sometimes this is a good example—or a great one. Sometimes this is a bad example—or just a funny blooper. Sometimes a combination. You never know.

Many decades ago, I attended a talk given by the brilliant and hilarious MacArthur Fellowship-awarded poet Heather McHugh.

(For all those who believe being nit-picky with language isn't worth the time and concentration it takes, all I can say is that her 60 full minutes of discussion focused on variations of meaning and effect due to a writer's choice to use "the" or "a" might have changed your mind. A man or the man? A funeral or the funeral? A chocolate frosted donut or the chocolate frosted donut?)

One aside into unnecessary quotation marks has stayed with me: a handwritten sign McHugh had seen in the window of a rural North Carolina filling station, reading: "Handyman" "Available." With each word encased in its own set of punctuation, can we be sure what type of handyman we're talking about? Or what kind of available the handyman might be?

Given that, what do you make of this sign?

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Actionable Tip of the Week

A trick to add to your self-editing toolbox right now!

One of the most-repeated suggestions for self-editing is to read your work out loud—and for good reason: it works! Something about the process of listening to your words as you actively speak out loud identifies clunky language, awkward phrasing, and overwritten descriptions.

So, yes, read your work out loud. But go a whole city block of steps further, and consider reading in public to an audience. Sign up for an open mic night!

Wait, don't leave! I promise I don't offer this tip lightly. I'm introverted and awkward in crowds, almost to the point of paralysis. Believe me, I get your objections and have said them all myself.

But here's the deal. Other than at book publication events, I've never attended a public reading during which the author did not try out at least one new piece (or section) to judge how well the writing works for a real audience. If you can set ego regarding the performance outcome aside, an open mic night will spotlight how your work lands.

Just for one example, if the issue in question is one of humor, you will be able to see immediately the open and honest reaction. If they don't laugh, it isn't funny. If they laugh in the wrong places, that also isn't funny.

Go to a town where no one knows you if you must. Take your pages on travels. Use a disguise and a fake name. Public reading is not for the faint of heart. But determine to use the experience to discover editing opportunities, and you will learn.

Reader Question of the Week

Geri wrote: I'm working on an article for which I've been asked to include interview material. This is new for me, and I'm not sure of the etiquette. One of my subjects is not very articulate. Is it okay to change the language of the quotes?

Geri! I was misquoted in an article before I ever wrote anything incorporating material gleaned from interviews, so I have a distinct opinion here that may or may not match what others will say. Take it with however many grains of salt you like!

• First, I assure my subjects that I will provide them with copies of their quotes to review and approve in advance—and I follow through on that promise. You might worry that responses will take too long, but in my experience, flagging the expectation in advance and providing a clear deadline has so far ensured that I've never been stuck waiting. (It helps that I am always working ahead.) No one has ever complained about my adjustments. I'm careful to not change any substance, just language.

Caveat: I email only their own quotes for review, not the whole piece; otherwise it looks like an invitation to edit the whole article!

• Second, if the language is really hopeless, or you are writing a super timely piece and can't wait for any kind of back and forth, then remember no law exists that quotes must be precise wording rendered in quotation marks or they don't count. Quote what you can, but paraphrasing with attribution is a reasonable second choice in many situations.

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Link of the Week

In service to my timepiece lust mentioned above, I have two links for you this week! Check out the Literature Clock and the Earth Clock. If you don't see the beautiful perfection at first, just wait a second. (Pun unintentional, but left intact. 🤦‍♀️) Brilliant and wonderful!

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I ❤️ Hearing from You!

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Thanks for reading!

~Helene, your writing sherpa

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