Too often they [teachers] don’t give a systematic view of a writer’s work, and train him to develop a thick skin instead of a sensible one. ~ The Artful Edit by Susan Bell
by Cevia Yellin, our in-house editorial expert
It’s my delight and pleasure to introduce Cevia Yellin, a long-time student in SIV working on a novel based on the restaurant her parents owned for ten years of her childhood. As luck would have it, Cevia is also a professional freelance writer and editor and has been helping copy edit and proofread all my posts on Flight School, because frankly, I don’t have the eyes to see errors, or the time to go through again and again (only to miss several typos). Cevia, who lives in Philadelphia and is helping care for her mom, began her career as an ESOL teacher and transitioned into freelance writing and editing when a medical condition took her out of the classroom fourteen years into the profession.
In this Lit Lesson, we are talking about proofreading and copy editing and why both matter, even in the early stages of the creative process, because they are a way to sharpen your creative skills and become aware of (and shed) bad habits.
Q: A little background here…you were living in Eugene, right? And then you recently had to move home to Philly to tend to your mom. How has that transition been going?
A: Yes, I moved to Eugene in 2011 to take a teaching position at the University of Oregon’s American English Institute and worked there until making the transition to freelancing in 2017. And then right after Thanksgiving this past year my mom suffered a fall. As soon as I got the news, I booked a mover, and two weeks later, I arrived back in my childhood home on the edge of northeast Philadelphia. I stayed with my mom for three and a half months while she was healing from her injuries, and in mid-April moved into my own place in Center City, just blocks from where my parents’ restaurant used to be.
I was born in the city, but grew up in the suburbs, so things are at the same time familiar and new, and the transition has been surreal. I haven’t lived in this area for thirty years, and it has been an intense time of reckoning…coming to terms with a lot of things in my life…and more than once, I have had the feeling that I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole! But I am holding fast to the meaning and purpose in where I am and what I am here to do.
Q: What made you want to dive into creative writing?
A: I have always loved reading and wanted to be a writer since a very young age. I found a book I’d been given for my sixth birthday at my mom’s house a few weeks ago called My Book About Me by Dr. Seuss and Roy McKie, and on the “what do you want to be when you grow up page,” I’d circled “writer” (albeit along with nurse, mother, and painter – none of which interested me in the least later on in life!).
I wrote stories as a kid, too, and was encouraged to write creatively by a high school teacher, but even though I majored in English in college, I didn’t take a single creative writing class. Not one! I was so afraid of the horror stories I’d heard about writing critiques (basically that everyone’s writing got ripped to shreds) that I buried my creative writing dreams under stacks of novels and essays on literary analysis.
But a few years into my teaching career, my school district sponsored a course on writing across the curriculum through the Colorado Writing Project (CWP), and it sparked something in me. I jumped at the opportunity, and it turned out to be one of those life-defining experiences.
The course was taught experientially, so we learned about the teaching of writing by immersion—a group of teachers learning about a method of writing instruction as a community of writers. The course was eight hours a day for two weeks, and I left with a small portfolio of my first creative writing pieces and a curriculum I designed to adapt the method for English Language Learners.
The time I spent facilitating writing workshops for immigrant and refugee students after CWP were the most rewarding moments of my teaching career. But it wasn’t until I joined Blackbird Studio for Writers fifteen years later that I wrote creatively with any regularity again. And it has been another life-defining experience.
Q: For those of us who don’t get it, what is the difference between copy editing and proofing?
A: Editing terms are abundant and often used interchangeably. But basically copy editing is the step before proofreading, which entails checking grammar, spelling, and punctuation and looking at issues that affect the style of a piece—transitions, word choice, wordiness. This could entail a bit of very light revising in the form of adding, deleting, or rewriting a phrase here and there.
Proofreading, on the other hand, is the last stage in the editing process. This is when the writing is checked for any lingering typos, grammatical mistakes, or other writing issues that have slipped through the cracks. Proofreading is about putting a layer of polish on the page so that the writing (and the writer by proxy) is professional and ready for an audience.
Q: I often will say that you cannot analyze while you create and I’ve never been a big fan of the copy editor or proofer until it’s time for me to send my work to an agent or a publisher…which is why I hired you when I began writing for Substack. But in our time working together, I also appreciate how you help nudge me out of some bad habits and improve my craft in subtle ways. How do you approach this issue of focusing on the little typos and grammatical issues while in a creative space and how do you think it helps writers to pay attention to them early on?
A: That is my general feeling as well. You want to bring a copy editor/proofreader onto the scene when you are ready to submit your work to an outside audience. And the higher the stakes that audience represents, the more of a necessity this outside help becomes, I believe.
But earlier on in the game, when you are the one writing and editing your own work, this is a delicate balance, and I completely agree with you on the not-analyzing-while-creating point. To me, these are different parts of the brain at work, and the last thing we want to do as writers (and editors!) is to stifle any aspect of the creative process.
So my advice is to not worry about your grammar being perfect or hunting for typos with a magnifying glass in your first couple of drafts. It is once you have the content somewhat solidified that you want to start in with the fine-toothed comb. Or when sharing pages as a workshop reader. Again, I’m not talking about perfectionism. Sometimes it takes a tremendous effort just getting the pages written in time to share on workshop days in the midst of our busy lives. This level of editing is simply about making your writing easy for readers to consume…so they can give you the feedback that will make it even better. Remember, we’re going from good to great at Blackbird!
So edit your early drafts in the service of getting what you desire from your workshop experience. These are things I’ve learned myself through trial and error as a newer creative writer, as there are different writing conventions for different genres. This can be confusing and frustrating when coming from a background in other kinds of writing, in my case academic writing, but also for those coming from a journalism background or technical writing or content marketing, etc. And let’s not get started on the headache of all of the competing style guides!
When sharing early drafts as a workshop participant focus on:
1) Formatting:
● indentation
● spacing
● how to punctuate dialogue
● page numbers, and
● standard font size/style)
2) Basic Grammar:
● pronouns and antecedents – make sure we know who/what you are talking about
● sentence length and complexity – should be varied to keep the reader engaged
● parallel structure – adds to the readability and fluidity of your prose
● avoidance of passive voice and overuse/repetition of grammatical structures – both create distance and can distract the reader
What is the rule in workshop?
Q: Can you imagine, in the workshops, taking off your copy editor/proofreader cap and letting a few typos slide without feeling bad?
A: Absolutely. I think this is very important, and I’ve personally grown as a writer (and person) from being vulnerable in the workshop experience and letting my mistakes be seen. We all have days when it is our time to read and we haven’t had the time to polish our pages as much as we’d have liked. Or at all. We do the best with the time we have, and when I am in workshop
listening to writers share their work, I am not looking for their typos. I’m listening to their words and the story being told, focused on the questions the writer has asked us to consider.
Q: Tell me a little about how you can help writers refine their work for those important readers who are also gatekeepers to a larger readership…
A: This is such an exciting time for Blackbird as the Studio begins guiding writers toward the publishing process. You absolutely want clean copy to land on the desks of your high-stakes readers (ie. potential agents, editors, and publishers), so a fresh set of eyes is needed. I bring my background and training in English language education and linguistics to the task of copy editing and proofreading so that your writing is polished and smooth and reader-ready. So that your writing is a reflection of the professional you are and the tremendous effort that has gone into your manuscript. I love that this work allows me to use the skills I honed as a teacher in support of writers putting their stories into the world. And my job is to help you do that in clear, authentic prose whose merit speaks for itself.
To work with Cevia, contact Jennifer or reach out to her directly, ceviay@gmail.com.
