Writer, Editor, Helper

First Things First: Settling Down to Work

[Note: If this post looks familiar to some readers, it’s because it accidentally posted itself for an hour or so on March 30 at 4:35 a.m. CDT. I wrote it ahead of time in a fit of efficiency because I’m on the road this week. (The irony of writing ahead of time about procrastination is not lost on me.) If you feel cheated, here’s an older post you might have missed.]

 

Do you ever set aside a whole Saturday to do nothing but work, except you promised a pie for the bake sale, and when you go to adjust the oven rack you remember that your kids roasted a goose in it the weekend before, and if you’ve ever cooked a goose, you know that you can’t use the oven again—maybe ever, but certainly not until you clean it—so you spray oven cleaner in it and it’s the kind that has fumes, so you rush around and open the doors and windows, and you have a cranky sliding glass door that sticks, and in wrenching it free you yank it off the tracks, so it’s hanging off your second-floor balcony ready to fall out and shred the next passer-by, so you leave phone messages with two door companies and two burly neighbors and start cleaning the oven, but your rubber gloves have holes and you’re afraid of the toxic cleaner (DANGER: WILL BURN SKIN AND EYES), so you run to the Ace for new gloves and when you get back one of the burly neighbors phones, and before you know it, it’s three o’clock and you haven’t done any work?

Me too.

What is this, other than procrastination? I could say that I had no choice but to do all those chores, but my decision to bake a pie before working precipitated the string of crises. Jon Elster calls this the “planning fallacy”*—that is, when we unrealistically plan on having uninterrupted time. Others believe that we procrastinate from fear of failure.

Whatever the reasons, studies confirm what we know already, that putting off tasks doesn’t make us happy.* The question is what to do about it.

Here are some ideas I scavanged online:

—Consider why you’re avoiding the work. Sometimes a self-diagnosis can suggest a strategy. If the task is overwhelming, break it into chunks. If it’s unrewarding, find a way to reward yourself when it’s done. If the task is too difficult, get help.

—Limit your expectations. Don’t expect to have hours and hours of uninterrupted work, and don’t expect to move the world in the time you do have. Have a modest goal and then a couple of backup goals in case you meet the first one easily.

—Unplug. If you need the Internet for your work, at least close your email and turn off the phone for as long as you can.

—And here’s a tip psychologists won’t tell you: Once you get going, ignore the usual advice to take regular breaks. We’ve seen where that leads. Instead, stick with your work as long as you’re cranking.
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*I attempted some actual research on procrastination; the first study I consulted, which I don’t think was supposed to be funny, concluded that “continued research into procrastination should not be delayed.” Here’s a more helpful page of links to information and help for procrastinators. I learned of Elster’s planning fallacy from James Surowiecki, “Later: What Does Procrastination Tell Us about Ourselves?,” New Yorker, October 11, 2010.

Photo: My procrastination, by GingerPig2000

Pretty Apologies: For When You’re Really Wrong

Have you ever found yourself in an argument with a writer over an issue you’re rock-solid sure about, but because of your naturally generous and open-minded nature, you try to see the other point of view, and then it begins to dawn on you that the writer might actually have something of a point, and finally it hits you like that falling piano that you’re spectacularly wrong?

Me, too.

What to do? If you own up, you will look bad, and your writers will no longer trust you. No, the best course for editors is to save face. Toward that end, I’ve accumulated some strategies that I’m willing to share.

The trick is to calibrate the force and complexity of the apology to the level of your stupidity and (for that rarely needed occasion) arrogance. For instance, a normal apology, for when you’ve argued with professional courtesy and restraint, can be breezy and dismissive and skimp on the actual apology part (“Ah, I see now. Thanks for explaining. No worries!”).

But let’s say you went further and flat-out asserted that the writer was misinformed. In that case, you’re going to need some fancier footwork, like “Oh, dear—I’m afraid this has all been a misunderstanding. In my haste in my previous e-mail I omitted the word not from that last sentence. We’ve actually been in agreement all along.”

Ratcheting things up (purely for the sake of argument), let’s say you got pretty het up. Let’s say you haughtily and erroneously invoked several sections of the Chicago Manual of Style along with various of your credentials, including the exact number of years you’ve been editing and your verbal score on the GRE. This is where you might do better with a quick phone call (leaving no record for future scrutiny): “I’m afraid your previous explanations sent me in the wrong direction, but I think I can sort this out now. Please don’t feel bad—many writers get confused about these things. I’m well used to it—I’ll have this back in shape in no time. And don’t worry—we can keep this between the two of us.”

In the unlikely event that you totally lost it—that you refused to have anything more to do with a project so beneath your standards and threatened to alert Acquisitions and Contracts that the project should be yanked—don’t panic. This always works: “Please disregard all correspondence of the last week—someone broke into my office and took over my manuscripts! I’ve been bound and gagged since Thursday and only just managed to free myself. And—no surprise—the scoundrel was not exactly up to speed on the sixteenth edition of CMOS. I’m sorry for any inconvenience or distress on your end, but rest assured, everything is now back under my expert eye.”

Finally, whatever happens, do not for a moment consider the advice of John McIntyre at the Baltimore Sun. I’m warning you: he will tell you to own up and take your lumps. And if you’ve ever tried it, you know the truth: it will only make things worse.

 

Indexing, or How to Torture a Reader

 

Photo: © Elysia in Wonderland

Professional book indexers are among the smartest people I know. You might picture indexers as nice, middle-aged women who like to talk about embroidery—and you would be partly right—until you see them in a conference session debating syndetic structure. Or until you ask one for advice on subheadings and she sends you thirty-five pages of it.

For expert indexers, building an elegant book index is an intellectual and creative challenge, and an editor appreciates the results as she might a good mystery novel or a perfect dinner party.

Some authors are excellent indexers of their own work. But sadly, some are not. Reading a homemade index the other day, I randomly checked a few cross references to get a feel for the writer’s competence, and once again found myself in awe. How is it that a person can have degrees from two world-class universities and still write an index entry like this (details have been changed to protect the clueless):

rabbit stew. See McGregor, Mr.

which took me to this:

McGregor, Mr., 15

How much trouble would it have been simply to give the page number at the original location instead of forcing me to make that trip?

Here are a few tips for amateur indexers:

—Look at the styling of page number ranges in the document, and use the same system in writing the index. For instance, 635–36 and 100–101  (Chicago style) may be expressed as 635–636 and 100–101 or 635–6 and 100–1 in other stylebooks.

—Compose cross references logically rather than mechanically, with the reader’s convenience in mind. If it takes the same amount of space or less to supply the page numbers instead of writing a cross reference (as in the example above), give the page numbers at both locations. This is called double posting. (If there are several page numbers, however, a cross reference is usually more economical than a double post.)

—Don’t send a reader to a string of undifferentiated page numbers unless all of those pages pertain to the original entry. If some don’t, create subheadings to identify the ones that do.

—Use cross references only if there is additional information at the destination entry. Don’t send me on a wild goose chase.

In sum, put yourself in the place of the reader, and whenever it’s practical, provide the information that’s most helpful. And if you want to index with the big guys, educate yourself.

 

Chicago vs. AP et al.: Can’t We Just Be Friends?

Here at the Chicago Manual of Style, I’ve been dismayed by recent talk online about discord between the major style manuals: tweets from the ACES conference calling for an “AP vs. Chicago smackdown”; a new blog called “AP vs. Chicago.”

Upset by the hype, I went to my boss and mentor, Chicago’s managing editor Anita Samen. “Anita, what’s happening?” I asked. “Why do people want to drive a wedge between us and AP? I thought we were friends!”

Anita sighed. “Sit down, dear,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to have ‘the Talk’ with you. The truth is . . . they’re jealous. Yes, they’ve probably heard the rumors. And since that means the truth will be all over the Internet in no time, I might as well explain: we’ve been in bed with AP for years.

“It’s true: not only are we friends, we’re friends with benefits—and proud of it, too. MLA, APA, CSE, and even [sotto voce] Bluebook. We hook up with them when we want to or need to or when it just feels right. It’s not that we’re slutty—well, maybe a little. It’s just that we’re not into exclusive relationships or long-term commitments with other styles.

“Sure, we may sometimes seem to ignore AP or the other styles we hang with—or even deny that we use them. But we value and respect them even when we aren’t faithful. Our lives would be poorer without our style buddies, and although we don’t like to admit it, our hookups with them can help us make better decisions about our own style.

“And, you know, it’s not a one-way street. Other styles have a friends-with-benefits relationship with us. Back in 2003 when we talked about citing online sources in our 15th edition, MLA and APA started talking about it too. That’s okay. It wasn’t trash talk. We’re all in this together—style (like S-E-X) is important! Sometimes we’ll dally with APA, sometimes with MLA; sometimes we’ll fiddle with AP. Sometimes we’ll even swap citations with CSE or Bluebook. They’re all important to us—and we’re friends with all of them. Friends with benefits.”

Eyes wide, I thanked Anita for clueing me in and went back to my desk, trying to process everything she had told me.

No question about it, I’m going to need some bigger style sheets.