On Wednesday I turned in my Bangladesh writing assignment for the energy analyst job I interviewed for. Shortly after that, I applied for a freelance copy editor job with an online publisher in the self-publishing industry.

I was able to say in my cover letter that I'm currently editing a first novel for a woman who's chosen to go the self-publish route.

They emailed me back and asked me to do two editing tests, 1 fiction and 1 non-fiction. Each is 6 pages long, but I can tell you I spent HOURS on the fiction test. There was quite a lot of fixin' to be done with it, and each time I looked at it I found more things. And it was exceedingly helpful to copy and paste my edited version, which was edited using Track Changes, and then read over the same version with all edits incorporated. I caught quite a few extra spaces between words doing that, something that's hard to spot when you use MS Word's Track Changes function.

So I'll start the non-fiction assignment tomorrow. I don't really mind doing tests like this because I think it quickly separates the average candidates from the very good ones, and I'm confident in my abilities. Although I have never worked as a book editor, this is a chance to see if I'm really up to snuff as I think I am. I never actually majored in English, so if you ask me what a hanging participle dependent clause is, I'd have no idea. But one thing I did was read widely as a young child, and I have always felt doing so makes one a good writer. I think I was around 10 when I read War and Peace.

Tonight I went to dinner at a friend's place. It was just spaghetti and meatballs, but he makes everything from scratch, which I don't bother doing with meatballs, or sauce, for that matter, unless I'm putting up tomatoes from the garden. The sauce was quite good, and my compliments got me some leftovers to take home. I brought him two cucumbers from my garden which he seemed to appreciate.

Otherwise, not much going on, but somehow, I'm always busy in a contented sort of way. My birthday came and went this week and I barely noticed! I was too preoccupied at the time with completing my first writing assignment. I did take myself to the $2 movie house and I saw most of Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer. It was cute for a while, but I left before it was over. I was very fond of the Harriett the Spy book series as a child and I think this movie reminded me of her.