In the past I’ve talked about the editing process, and how whenever I edit someone else’s work I seem to leave footprints in their text.

Well, I think I’ve finally conquered that problem.

Today I received an advanced copy of “A practical guide to Information Architecture”, the book I spend a month or so editing for my friend Donna Spencer. (It gets officially released on the 8^th of June.) And as I started reading it I saw my name in the list of credits. “Editor: Bill Harper”

It was an incredibly satisfying feeling. I worked really hard on the manuscript, and it was great to see my name along with the rest of the production crew. (The publishers have since asked if I’d be interested in working on other projects. Two words: “Hell yeah!”)

But then I read the acknowledgements page, and I was blown away. Here’s what Donna said about me:

“My editor Bill Harper was amazing. I looked at the first chapters he sent back and thought he hadn’t done anything – I couldn’t see any differences. But he had done tons of work – he’d managed to improve my writing out of sight and still keep it sounding just like me. Bill, I hope you can edit for me for every other book I write (and I’m glad you’re my friend).”

Now I’ll admit I was lucky: Donna and I have very similar writing styles, and so it was nowhere near as difficult as it could have been. But still, it was great to see she couldn’t even see where I’d been until she actually compared the two versions. Not a footprint in sight.

If you’re reading this Donna, I can’t thank you enough. For your friendship, for your faith in my abilities, and for your kind words that have done more for me than you can possibly imagine. And I would be honoured to edit every other book you write.

I’ve just completed a marathon editing session—five chapters and just over 9,000 words. Okay, it was a marathon session for me. Some of you could probably do it during your lunch break.

But I really enjoyed it (probably a lot more than I should), and I learned a lot. And not just about the manuscript topic, either. I also learned:

• I can only do it for an hour or so before I need a break. The good news is I only need a 15-minute break before I can start again.
• the universe doesn’t collapse when you shut down Tweetdeck. (Of course if it did they’d be a thousand tweets about it when I started it up again.)
• If I’ll be doing any more of this work I’m going to need a new chair.

At the moment I’m using one of our kitchen chairs that has only one adjustment—pushing it closer to my desk. My old office chair fell apart a few years ago, and I’ve never quite gotten around to buying a new one.

A lot of people I know have raved about Herman Miller chairs, and the Aeron model in particular. They sounded awesome—right up to the point where I found out how much they cost.

I pretty much gave up on the idea. But after sitting in front of the keyboard for the best part of a day I’m re-evaluating my decision.

And there’s a place that sells them just up the road from where I work.

So one day this week I might actually try one out (I’ll probably have to hand over my credit card in case I try rolling one out the door). Hopefully I’ll get to sit in one at a desk to make sure it does the trick. I may even steal some fake computer equipment from Freedom Furniture so it feels just like I’m sitting at my office desk.

But if they ask me to do any editing, I think I’ll pass. Unless they’re willing to pay me in a few form of currency—Aerons.

There’s a great scene in the movie “(500) Days of Summer” where they show two versions of the same scene side-by-side. On the left is what the male lead thinks will happen (“Expectations”), and on the right is what actually happens (“Reality”). And of course, reality doesn’t come close to matching his expectations.

When I started this blog, I too had expectations (or more accurately, “delusions”) of how it would all pan out. After a successful day’s freelancing (even if only during my lunch break at the regular job) I’d come home and spend some quality time with my wife and son. After dinner, we’d bath our son (more quality time together), give him his final bottle and put him to bed. We might watch some television together, or just have a quiet chat.

And then I’d come here to write another blog post.

It could be about anything—a report on how the day went, or maybe just something on my mind that I want to talk about. But whatever the topic, it would be my chance to relax and unwind. It would be my dessert, or maybe that final drink before bed.

Unfortunately the reality hasn’t come anywhere near my expectations.

Thanks to various pressing deadlines (not to mention lunchtime meetings), I’ve been lucky if I get to eat lunch, let alone work on my freelancing. By the time we’ve had dinner, bathed our son and put him to bed, it’s close to nine o’clock. By the time I finish the blog it’s well after ten, and then I go to bed and crash until the alarm goes off at five-thirty the following morning.

(On weekends we switch off the alarm, and get woken up by our son instead. But it’s still around the same time.)

And so, despite promising myself this would be the year I’d become a freelancer (if only part-time to begin with), the whole thing has pretty much stalled.

And now I’m trying to find the time to get it going again.

So what are my options? Well, one option would be to stop blogging, or at least slow down the posting a bit (I’d still like dessert every once in a while). That would give me an extra few hours a week. How productive I’d be is another story, because by the time I sit in front of the keyboard I’m already falling asleep (as some of you have probably worked out by now).

Another option is to try and find more time during my day. I spend 40 minutes on trains each day, and providing I can get a seat I could at least draft some notes, or even do a bit of research. (If I tried doing either of these while standing up I’d end up hurting someone.)

Daylight Savings finishes soon, which should put an end to the lunchtime meetings. (It only happens because we’re an hour behind our head office.) If I ignore my email, switch my phone to voicemail, ignore my instant messages and wear my noise-cancelling headphones, I can probably get another hour a day.

I have some long service leave up my sleeve, and so if I really wanted to (and my bosses gave me the go-ahead) I could take a fortnight or so off to work on the freelancing stuff. But I don’t think now is a good time to do something like that. I’m still very green, and so I’d waste a lot of the time fumbling my way around. I’d much rather wait until I know what I’m going so I can make the most of the time I have.

I could take another day off each fortnight, making it a four-day week. It sounds fantastic, but I’d have to take a serious look at our finances (and try not to laugh too hard) before I could do something like that.

Of course, the ideal solution would be to give up the regular job and just write all day instead. But while poverty might be worth considering when you’re young and single, it isn’t really option when you’ve got a family and a mortgage.

Sorry if it seems like you’ve just caught me thinking out loud. But this is what’s been on my mind lately, especially with the regular job heading in a direction I don’t particularly want to go. This is my escape plan, and by the looks of things I’ll need it sooner rather than later.

Today I got a taste of what it would be like to write for a living. Or, in this case, edit.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m editing a book manuscript for a friend of mine. So far it’s been a bit hard finding more than a few hours amongst everything else going on—the regular job, family commitments, etc. But today I got to spend pretty much the entire day on it.

I didn’t get to spend quite as much time on it as I would have liked. Our son had a restless night last night, which meant we all had a restless night. (Parenting tip: Got small children? Buy a king-size bed if you can possibly afford it. Believe me, you’ll thank me later.) So it took a little while (not to mention a large Ice Break) to get the brain in gear.

There was also the small matter of having a blood test, which always makes me nervous. (A few years ago I had one and managed to faint not once but twice. In the end I had to lie down in the recovery room for an hour or so. Not a very pleasant way to spend a morning.)

But with that little drama out of the way (no problems this time around), I got a good four or five hours editing in before I had to pick up my son.

And I have to tell you, it felt pretty damn good.

Don’t get me wrong. I still want to be a freelancer, writing my own articles and getting them published. But I’ve always enjoyed editing (and not just because I like the colour red), and I think I’d be quite happy doing it professionally—at least for a while.

Who knows? Maybe it’s a combination of the two that will see me finally break free of the regular job and live the dream of being a full-time writer.

Though hopefully without the blood tests.

I just checked some stats on my blog (the ones I really care about).

This will be my 80th post, and when I finish it I’ll have cracked the 35,000-word mark. That’s about 30,000 more than I expected to write (I’ve tried blogging before and failed miserably), and I’m sure every one of them has made me a better writer.

So why are my posts taking longer and longer to write?

One problem is obviously coming up with ideas. My life isn’t very eventful (though I’d like to change that), and so I often struggle to come up with something to talk about. And the more I post, the worse it’s going to get.

Then there’s the problem of repeating myself. Every so often I’ll be working on a post and suddenly think I’ve said it all before—especially if the writing is going really well. So I’ll spend the next ten minutes doing searches to convince myself otherwise. (For the record, I’ve only done it a couple of times which, considering how shocking my memory is sometimes, isn’t too bad.)

But I think what’s really slowing me down is that I no longer come to the keyboard thinking, Okay, this is what I want to say. These days it’s more like, Okay, this is what I want to say. Now, what’s the best way to say it?

So I’ll think of a lead, and write it down. Then I might write down a few more leads that could also work. A possible title comes to mind, so I’ll put that at the top of the page before returning to the bottom.

Later on I might remember an anecdote I can use, and I’ll type that up. Later on I might decide I should use it to start the post, and so up it goes. Whole paragraphs get pushed around, and new ones get added to fill the void.

And then I might find what I thought was a perfect sentence, or even paragraph, just doesn’t fit any more, and so with the push of a button it disappears forever—or at least until I realise I can use it somewhere else and start hitting “Undo” a dozen times to bring it back.

After what seems an eternity (especially as I tend to start late at night), I have my first draft. The structure is pretty sound, and it seems to flow.

Then I start looking at the paragraphs, making sure they’re as short as possible, and say only what needs to be said. Making sure everything still flows as it should.

Then I’ll look at the sentences and the words, making sure they work together, and create a nice rhythm, a nice sound. If something doesn’t sound right, I’ll keep tweaking the words until it does. (My favourite quote at the moment is from Elmore Leonard: “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it”.)

From here I give it a final read (to hopefully pick up the typos), think of a title (which can take another ten minutes or so), and then post.

If I’m lucky the whole process has only taken me an hour or so. If I’m not, then I’m going to very tired when the alarm goes off the following morning.

I’m not saying this is how it should be done. Believe me, I’d love to have the whole thing fully-formed in my head so I can just type for ten minutes and it’s done. But for me writing has always meant rewriting, and if it takes me a bit longer to get there, then so be it.

After all, this isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. And I’ve still got a long way to go.

A few days ago I talked about the editing work I do in my regular job. About how much work it can be sometimes. About how much I enjoy doing it, and seeing the results.

Well, right now I’m just about ready to give it all up.

No, not because of the work that was taken away from me. I’m still okay with that (though it was hard not to grimace a little when I saw the results this morning). No, what’s finally tipped me over the edge is seeing the editing work being done elsewhere in the organisation. Or rather not being done.

Don’t get me wrong. When it comes to information we send out to the public, we’re pretty good. We have entire processes dedicated to making sure it’s perfect in every way. But when the information is just for our staff, it seems to be a case of “near enough is good enough”.

It doesn’t need to be concise. It doesn’t need to flow. Hell, it doesn’t even need to make sense.

Now I realise we don’t employ people for their writing skills (although sometimes I wish we did). But despite having an entire section looking after the organisation’s official communication, it still gets published.

(And for the record I’ve asked them repeatedly if I can help out with their editing work. But no, they’ve got everything under control.)

And so, as I slog through paragraph after bloated paragraph, I think, “Why do I even bother?”

I don’t want to give up the work. As I said I enjoy the work, and the results. And I don’t want to abandon something I’ve spent the past ten years creating.

But I’m no longer enjoying it as much as I used to. The work I do is just a drop in the ocean, and the ocean’s getting bigger every day. The focus seems to be on getting it done rather than getting right. No-one seems to care any more.

So why should I?

If you’ve been reading this blog over the past week or so you’ll know I’ve been in quite a good mood lately. Well, today that good mood was tested to the limit.

One of my roles in our organisation is to make sure any “official” documents being sent from our IT department can be understood by the rest of the organisation. Some just need a bit of tweaking, while others need a complete rewrite. But it’s a job I both enjoy and take a lot of pride in.

I guess that’s because it’s not a role I joined. It’s a role I helped create. Ten years ago the role didn’t exist, and what we were sending out was nothing short of abysmal. So I started sending edited versions back to the authors to show them how the documents should have been written. (Yeah, I know. A great way to make new friends, eh?)

Anyway, someone saw what I was doing and decided to make the work I was doing a bit more official. A couple of other people who knew how to write came on board, and we became the IT area’s communication group. Anything “official” had to come through us before they went out to everyone else.

A lot has changed in those ten years. The two people I originally teamed up with left years ago. The numbers have gone up and down according to funding. I’ve had several bosses, none of which seemed to “get it” as much as my first boss. And while there are now several other people in the “team”, I seem to be the only one doing any actual editing.

But that’s okay. As I said, I enjoy the work. And there’s nothing quite like handing back the edited version to someone and being thanked for a job well done.

So I was shocked to find another person in the “team” asking if they could approve documents coming from an IT project without me having any input. I was even more shocked when my boss said he was okay with it.

A month ago I would have stormed out of the office to cool off, and then calmly told them I was quitting the role. I know because when I found out it’s exactly what I wanted to do.

But then I decided it wasn’t worth getting upset about, and I just let it go. The anger subsided, and I think I even laughed at the idea. Of course that may all change when I see what they come up with, or when I’m asked to help them out, but I’ll cross those bridges when I get to them.

I also let go of something else today. But that will have to wait for another time.

If there’s one thing I’d like my son to be good at when he’s older, it’s reading.

It’s certainly not the only thing I’d like him to be good at. I’d like him to be good at everything from solving maths problems to making friends. But reading would certainly be near the top of the list.

Whenever someone asks me how they can become a better writer, I always give the same answer: “Read a lot, write a lot”. Now I’m not expecting my son to become a writer when he grows up. But I’d really love him to enjoy reading, and I can’t wait for the day when he gets his very first library card, and heads off to load his arms up with books.

The good news, he already seems to be interested in them. Sure, they’re mostly Yo Gabba Gabba books, but he still likes dragging them out and having me read them to him. And now he’s starting to actually look through the pages himself and point out the various characters.

He’s only two, so he’s a long way from reading the words, or even recognising the letters. But that may be about to change.

For the past week or so he’s been hooked on Dora the Explorer, whose voice sounds like scraping your fingernails down a blackboard after a while. (Please tell me you know what a blackboard is.) Still, as painful as it is to listen to it does keep him occupied while we get ready for work, and so it’s now part of our morning routine.

But now he’s found a new show to watch. And it’s not “Go, Diego, Go”, thank goodness. No, his new favourite show is Super Why, which is all about letters, and making words out of them. And there’s not a talking backpack or thieving fox in sight.

Now I certainly don’t want him growing up to be a couch potato, which is why we’re more than happy to take him to the park just up the road. (Well, that and the fact it wears him out completely so he sleeps past five-thirty in the morning.) But I figure if he’s going to watch something on television, it may as well be educational.

And let’s face it: anything’s got to be better than Dora the Explorer.

Here are two words that should never be used together: “lunchtime” and “meeting”.

A couple of our organisation’s senior executives visited our office today, and so we had to schedule a series of obligatory meetings with them.

The first started at eleven, and we all walked in with absolutely no idea what the meeting was about. This happens quite often where I work: a meeting’s scheduled, and we’re all expected to be there, but there isn’t even a hint about what it’s about. It’s as if they’re being deliberately vague to make it more interesting. You can almost hear the voiceover guy in the movie trailers saying, “What will they be talking about today in the Mystery Meeting? There’s only one way to find out”.

Unfortunately these meetings never quite live up to the hype, and this one was no exception. They started talking about stuff I already knew, and finished off with stuff I didn’t need to know.

From there we went straight into the lunchtime meeting. This meeting was much better because we got to ask them all sorts of interesting questions…

Okay, so I lied. This meeting was better because they supplied lunch, and the food was actually pretty good. We did get to ask questions, but they either didn’t concern me, didn’t interest me, or I didn’t like the answers.

For a while I actually felt myself slipping out of my good mood, especially when I looked out the window at the Brisbane River just a short walk away. I wanted nothing more than to take a relaxing stroll along for shoreline in the sun, but instead I was stuck in an office building under fluorescent lighting.

For some reason people think it’s okay to take away our lunch hour if they supply food. I’m sorry, but I do a lot more with my lunch hour than just eat. It’s my chance to escape—sometimes with a book, but usually with a walk. It’s a chance to remind myself what it feels like to be free, and not a corporate desk jockey.

So please, no more lunchtime meetings. I really do have better things to do.

(Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I still have the spring in my step.)

Remember when you hired a video and sat through all those trailers for other movies? Of course you don’t. You hit the fast-forward button like everyone else, only bothering to press play if something looked interesting (or if, miracle of miracles, the movie actually started). That’s the real reason they invented DVDs and Bly-Ray—to stop you skipping through the previews.

Anyway, you’ll know these trailers help “sell” a movie. (Hands up everyone who hired a movie after seeing one, only to realise the trailer showed the only good bits in the entire movie. Yeah, me too.) Well now they’re doing the same for books. That’s right: you can now watch a trailer for a book.

Now I don’t have a problem with the author appearing on screen and telling people how good their book is and why you should buy it. It’s always nice to meet the person behind the words, as Joanna Penn wrote in a recent article.

But for the love of whatever deity you happen to believe in, don’t dramatise the book.

A week or so ago I found out Gerry Boyle is writing another book in the Jack McMorrow series. Now I love that series, and so when I found out I went straight to his web site to find out more. And what did I find? A book trailer.

I clicked ‘play’, hoping to hear from Gerry himself. But then I saw what I presume were scenes from the book, and immediately hit the ‘back’ button.

This will be the ninth book in the series. I’ve read the other eight, and so I have a pretty clear picture in my mind about what everything (and everyone) looks like. Stephen King came up with the perfect name for it: skull cinema. So the last thing I need is to have someone telling me, “Actually, this is what it really looks like. Sorry, but you’ve had it wrong the whole time.”

It’s bad enough when you see a movie based on a book and everything’s different to how you imagined it. I don’t want the same thing happening before I even open the book.

So for those of you who think a video trailer is the perfect way to sell your book, think again. Some of like making up our own images of what everything looks like.

After all, it’s probably why we’re reading the book in the first place.