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Just want to make sure everyone understands that a professional editor or copyeditor is not going to mock you or make fun of your work.

By the time we see your manuscript, you’ve spent months and often years on it. Our job is to help ensure your words are clear to the reader and to make you look as good as possible. It’s a collaborative relationship that works best when there is mutual respect. In all cases, the book belongs to the author, and the author has final say.

Of course there will be infelicities, unless you are one of those rare* people who is perfect. A typical manuscript comprises 100,000 words. That’s 100,000 opportunities for error at minimum, compounded by words’ pesky habit of working in tandem and our brains’ tendency to spit out commonly heard terms while our eyes overlook them.

Copyeditor’s note: “Our brain’s tendency” or “our brains’ tendency”? A judgment** call. Although there’s only one brain per person, using the singular brings up the image of a collective mind. These constant judgment calls make copyediting the hardest job I do, except for writing.

* Thank goodness!

** Although “judgement” is an acceptable variant spelling, according to Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, the dictionary recommended by The Chicago Manual of Style, “judgment” is the preferred spelling. Major and minor publishers use Chicago for their house style.

Someone asked me how to get started blogging. My first reaction: Do you really want to blog?

If you don’t like to write, if you don’t know what you would write about, if your days are already so full you can barely find time to catch your breath, blogging might not be for you. Then again, you might love the opportunity to write whatever pleases you and to engage with others. Continue reading “A sketchy intro to blogging”

An overview of Web site statistics for the new proprietor of a Web site or blog. If anything is unclear or confusing, please leave a comment so I can fix the problem. Thanks!

• Page tags
• Site logs
• How to access your site logs through your Web host
• Example site log entry

There are two ways to track your site visiters: site logs and page tags (counters and trackers). Both provide information about

• the number of visitors,
• the countries of your visitors,
• the links on other sites that led to yours,
• the words that brought up your site in online searches,
• which search engine was used,
• the Web browsers and operating systems used by your visitors, and
• other data.

Continue reading “Tracking your Web site or blog visitors”

NOTE: This version of the patch doesn’t include the big calendar fix, and it hasn’t been tested with WordPress 2.6.

The current version of the Event Calendar plug-in (3.1.1rc3) doesn’t work with WordPress 2.5. A solution was posted to the Event Calendar e-mail list.

I’ve uploaded my patched files here: http://www.williamswriting.com/pdf/ec311rc3patch.zip

To use the patch, first download and unzip the Event Calendar 3.1.1rc3 plug-in.

Then download the file from my site. Copy the unzipped files into the Event Calendar plug-in folder. DON’T FORGET TO SCAN FOR VIRUSES BEFORE UNZIPPING.

There should be two replacement files: eventcalendar3.php and ec3.js. Backup files for both (eventcalendar-BU.php and ec3-BU.js) are included, just in case the patches don’t work for you. The Past Events plug-in (not a patch but very useful) contributed by one of the list members is also included.

Added: Sergio asked, “Is there any solution to the 404 error with the tags in the WP 2.5 when you use the ‘Keep Events Separate’ option?”

This patch should fix that problem. I use “Keep Events Separate” on my test blog. There has to be an event for the month that’s clicked, however. I haven’t tried this patch on WordPress 2.5.1 yet.

Just about ten years ago I laid out a fund-raising recipe book for Gloria Council No. 3 of IDES. I got involved in other things and the project lapsed. Then a few months ago someone called me wanting one of those books. Of course none were to be had. Continue reading “Sacramento Portuguese Heritage Recipe Book”