Rantings of a sub-editor

I am terrible at working at home. Really. It sounds nice, right? Pyjamas are accepted workwear, there’s tea and coffee on tap and there are no colleagues biting their nails, humming, grunting or doing any of the other things colleagues do. But, left to my own procrastinations and insanities, I am next to useless. Give me an office and its corresponding code of sane conduct any day. For me, working from home is a slow spiral into absurdity.

It starts off simply:

• When you get to the end of the page, you can make a cup of tea. Fair.
• After the first ten pages, you can make coffee. Ooh, kerr-azy!
• You can look at Twitter once every five pages.
• Potato goes in the oven at 11.30am, not before, and then you come back here and do another half hour while it bakes.

Gets sillier:

• Finish page 12, and you can put on Boombastic and dance around pretending to be Shaggy.
• No Irish Rover until page 15.
• Yes, you can take a five-minute break to pluck your eyebrows, seeing as it’s clearly urgent. But two more pages first.
• No Lambada until page 20.
• What’s that? You have a pressing urge to look up Delia’s gnocchi recipe? Well it’ll have to wait until page 23.
• Write a blog post about it all? Oh yes, excellent use of your time. Inspired, really.

Then slowly descends into madness:

• Freezing, are you? Well you’d better finish that document then. Because the heating’s not going on until you have. But finish that page and you can have a scarf.
• Period pains? Ha! A thousand small demons scratching at your womb with their claws of broken glass? Tough. You can’t have any more painkillers until you get to page 27. Oh, don’t give me that “I’d work better if I wasn’t in agony” crap.
• Dinner? Dinner? Ha, like you deserve dinner! WORK FOR IT THEN, SOLDIER. HUP! There’s nothing like a bit of low blood sugar-induced trembling to help you get a wiggle on.

As I write, I am wearing fleece polka-dot trousers (tucked into my socks) with, for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, a woollen skirt over the top. Then, a stripy jumper, an aqua dressing gown over that, and – for the pièce de résistance – I have used the dressing gown belt to strap a hot-water bottle to my belly. The glamour of the overall look is quite simply astounding.

On the plus side, there’s the view from my desk.

Smells like holiday

I am very excited. This is partly because at lunchtime I went out and spent a ridiculous (calm down, not that ridiculous) amount of money on a leather-bound notebook of great beauty. It’s A4, with thick plain paper inside and a soft brown cover. And a ribbon.

Why?

Because last night, on the edge of sleep, I had a brainwave.

Before I explain the brainwave (the genius of which will undoubtably mean you need a lie-down afterwards, so be prepared), I should first explain the problem to which it is a solution. Are you with me?

Now, I live in Brighton and work in London. That takes up 6am-7.30pm of my life every day. I also do some weekend shifts, mainly Saturdays at The Sunday Times. And I write a blog, take part in a news group, go out with friends, see my family, cook, clean, launder, iron (okay, pretty much lying now), go to the gym (now definitely lying) and cajole builders into fixing my crumbling flat (oh but it’s listed and so pretty – who minds a rotting rafter or three?). For the past year, I’ve been using my holiday allowance to take days off after doing weekend shifts – as a result, apart from four days last June between leaving The Grocer and starting at Which?, I haven’t had a holiday – as in several consecutive days off –  since July 2009.

I am not complaining. I’ve created this situation myself, I’m happy and I love being busy. I’m also sure there are many people who are far busier. I am very lucky - I have a good job, a lovely (if somewhat mouldy) home and some quite frankly sterling people around me. But… there are other things I would like to do, for which I don’t have time and haven’t had time for – ooh – three years.

I accept that in making an effort to succeed in one field, you have to be prepared to make compromises in another. That’s fine. But it’s a tough balance, and I’m not sure I always get it right.

I would like to have time to paint. I’m reasonably good at it, don’t you know. I would like to write (non-grammar and non-household-appliance things, shock horror). And I would like to take my camera on long, rambling walks. Preferably barefoot, with silver rings on my toes and flowers in my hair, though I admit that part may prove not to be practical.

For various reasons, this has been bothering me more of late. And after a particularly agitated few days, I had a small epiphany last night. I am going to take a holiday. Yeeees.

I am going to take a week off, but stay in Brighton. Including the weekends, that’s nine days. I will treat each day (9am-6pm) as a working day, but only work on the things I want to. From 8-8.30am, I will go for that run I never have time for. From 1-3pm, like the Spanish, I will take a long lunch break, meet up with friends, perhaps have a massage (erm and visit the dentist and optician, yay). Like Bill Gates, I will check my emails only once a day (Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Flickr). In fact, I will touch the computer only once a day. IN FACT, I will conduct as much of the above as possible outside of my flat (hotbed of distraction that it is).

Hence the beautiful leather-bound notebook. It’ll be fun. Roll on 26^th March!

Firstly, merry Christmas!

Secondly, and, hehe, more importantly, let’s talk about me. I need a little advice.

A few people have suggested that I “get the blog published as a book”. I’m very flattered by this, and more than willing. However, I have no bloody idea how to go about it, or even what exactly I have to offer. So if anyone has any suggestions, advice or information, I’d be grateful to hear it.

I think the main things I need to consider are:

What would it be?

A grammar guide? A style guide? A how-to-write guide? Or not a guide at all – a series of rantings (similar to some of what I have written on the blog, but more polished)? An illustrated gift book with humorous tips? I’ve tried to do a bit of all of these on my blog, but I’m not really sure where to focus. Or what length I should be looking at. Or how deep to go.

Who is it for?

I have some quite strong opinions on this point. What I don’t like about some existing books on good writing is the haughty tone that they take, and the inaccessibility. If I were to write a book, I would like it to be one that most people could understand. That means no Latin, no assumptions of cultural knowledge or level of education, no long and unfathomable quotations.

I’ve read plenty of books on writing, and some of them make me feel stupid. I’m not stupid, and neither is anyone else with enough love for language to spend their time finding out more about it, I must assume. So I don’t want to write anything that makes anyone feel stupid. Ever.

Getting more specific, would it be for journalists? Sub-editors? Students? General interest? A stocking-filler gift?

Erm… how to do it?

Yeah… that’s the biggest question of all. I could make the time, by writing during my commute. That’s fifteen usable hours per week. But where do you start? Do you contact a publisher first and pitch them an idea? Or write first and then pitch? Or…?

As you can see, it’s an idea that really is in its earliest infancy. I don’t have any contacts in the world of publishing, or know anyone who has successfully had a book published. For all my ranting, at the end of the day I am just a lass from Bognor Regis (aww) and it’s all very well telling me to publish a book, but… how? So, if anyone fancies giving me their tuppence worth, I’d be glad to hear it! Here’s your chance to help mould my new year’s resolutions.

While I’m on the subject, last year I resolved to:

• Give up alcohol and sugar for January (achieved, with a few wobbles)
• Get a new job (I left The Grocer for Which? in June: achieved)
• Do some national newspaper shifts (yep, I’ve done quite a few at The Sunday Times and the Guardian, and a couple on The Times supplements: achieved)
• Become a lean, mean yoga goddess (erm, well… there’s always next year)

So, overall, woop!

For bonus woops, the Guardian’s Mind Your Language folks have listed Rantingsubs as a “site we like” (down there on the right-hand side), Wordsworks put it at number three on its 12 links of Christmas and Emphasis has asked me to write some (paid, yeah!) guest blog posts.

I’ve been writing the blog for more than a year now, and am shocked and delighted to say that it’s had more than 25,000 hits. Thank you to everyone who has read my ramblings, commented on posts, corrected me (usually gently, sometimes brutally), argued with me/one another, sent me material (Andy, Mum, Vince) and generally participated in the geekiness. Thanks too to the excellent guest writers who joined in the fun – and if anyone else would like to have a rant, get in touch. Thank you specifically to Kit and Pete, without whose prompting and poking I would certainly not be considering writing a book, and who have gone out of their respective ways to open doors for me. Even if one of them spells petfood as a single word and the other plays fast and loose with his whiches and thats.

Write a book? Sure, I’m game. So, er, what do I do again?

Hi [name],

[Name] wanted the intro changed to make the link with the ad in the picture more explicit. I’ve changed it to the following – can you check that you’re happy with this? I’ve moved the bit about its size into the next par, also below.

Cinema ads for the TZ10 feature the 12Mp camera showing off its 12x zoom and terrific wide-angle lens by capturing an ancient Egyptian statue of Anubis coming to life. And although no monuments moved when we tried it, we weren’t disappointed.

The zoom starts from a wide angle of 25mm, which is exceptional for a camera just 3.5cm thick. This is useful for taking photos of groups of people, as it allows you to fit more into your shots without having to stand back from the action.

Thanks,

Cathy

And the reply (which, following a phone conversation to check, I have ascertained was not a joke) came thus:

Only question I’d ask – but this is pernickety – is why would people expect us to be disappointed that monuments didn’t move when we tried it?

How about: We were unable to recreate the moving monuments in our tests, but we were very pleased with the camera’s overall performance.

Thanks,

[name]

Excellent! My first choice of fantasy performance still remains The Grocer The Musical, but until such time, I am more than content with this. Yes, someone’s made a play about subs: http://www.cocktaverntheatre.com/subs.html

Apologies folks, I have dropped off the planet for a little while! I was on holiday last week, enjoying the fine rain of the west country. And now I am just getting used to working at Which? and my new and gigantic commute, which is leaving me a little short of time. Meanwhile, my American friend is staying with me at the moment and I keep noticing lots of funny language differences but not having time to write them down. Must remember for future writings!

In the words of the great Mr Schwarzenegger, I’ll be back.

Hello there everyone, just a quick note.

Firstly, thank you to everyone who contributes to the blog with comments and observations – and please don’t stop.

I’ve just changed the rules on commenting so that you have to input an email address. Most of you do this anyway, but to those who don’t, I promise I’m not going to sign you up to any awful mailing lists or anything. I’ve changed it for the simple reason that I am getting some unwelcome messages (who’d have thought a grammar blog would warrant it?), which isn’t very pleasant. Requiring an email address won’t prevent it, but it will mean I can block people from being able to comment again if necessary.

It’s not serious hate mail. The last couple of weeks have yielded:

“funny. not”

“this blog is a waste of time”

“please stop bloging, the internet is bored with it!!!!”

The first response that springs to mind is “well, don’t read it then, idiot”. But still, it’s annoying.

Somehow I suspect it will happen less frequently when the person/persons concerned have to provide an email address.

But it’s not all bad news. I have discovered I can make you all appear as little monsters, unless you already have a picture.