Writing and editing

One of the things I had to take out of the eulogy was Gloria's skill at editing.  The paragraph sounded too much about me, and the eulogy was supposed to be about Gloria.  So I took it out.  Which was a shame, really, because Gloria was the best editor I ever knew.  (And it was a real nuisance that she couldn't edit the eulogy.)

I suppose I should start out by saying that I hate, and have always hated, English class, whatever it was called, at whatever level.  Language, Writing, English, Humanities, I hated them all.  I think we were taught spelling, at some point.  I can't really remember that far back, and, by at least grade five, that seems to have disappeared.  I can't recall ever being taught much grammar.  The only formal grammar I can recall comes from French class, and, until I met Gloria, the only formal English grammar I knew was because French class told us that French grammar was a bit different.  I had to take one English class when I got to university, and it proved that English, and the study of English, was one long string of in-jokes that I was never in on.

So it was a bit ironic that I ended up writing.  Writing books.  Writing courses.  Writing articles.  And getting published, too.

Actually, despite my hatred of English (English class, you understand: English as a language I loved almost as much as Gloria did), until I was about thirty, everything I had written intending for it to be published, was published.  And, after I was thirty, I had the Internet, so I could "publish" anything I wanted.

When I published my first book, it seems that lots of people wanted to write books, and asked me for advice.  I told them that a good copy editor is vitally important, and when you find a good copy editor, you marry her.  When I married Gloria, I actually didn’t know that I would write books.  It was she who gave me the support to do so, and, without her, I probably never would have published any books.  But she was also the best copy editor I ever encountered.  She also did the full range of editing, including literary and developmental editing, and I benefitted greatly from her help in my writing.  My first, and, probably, last books are dedicated to her.

Her various bosses had differing attitudes to being edited.  Carl talked over with Gloria what he wanted said, and let her write the letter.  Other bosses, like her Dad, exploded if she changed one letter of their precious text.  So she was a little tentative about editing my stuff at first.  But I found that her edits were generally improvements, and she found that I'd accept them.  Or I wouldn't.  But, in any case, I was grateful for the help and suggestions.  So she expanded from just correcting my spelling and grammar to making all kinds of comments, including on the content.

She helped with a lot of my writing.  Even before I started writing books, she was instrumental in getting the review project going.  While I was reviewing the hundreds of technical and security books, I included a few others.  There was one called "BUGS in Writing," which is a sort of style and writing guide by Lyn Dupre.  (BUGS was/is an acronym which the author used as a rating system for the Bad/Ugly/Good/Splendid aspects of writing.)  When I reviewed the first edition of the book, Gloria put put a number of comments into the draft when she edited it.  So, since the book was about editing, I kept them in the review.  Then, when I submitted the draft review to Lyn Dupre, she answered, with comments of her own.  So I asked if she was willing to let them stand in the published review, and she was a good enough sport about it to allow it.  So they are still there, in the published review.

So, if this blog seems poorly written, it's because I've lost the best editor I ever knew.