A few years back I wrote three essays for You Did What?, a collection looking at serious missteps that would provoke that reaction from any sane individual. For example, I wrote about the introduction of New Coke and the failed rescue attempt of the Iranian hostages.I had a lot of fun working with editor Bill Fawcett and Brian Thomsen, the book came out from HarperCollins, and is still for sale for those interested.Recently, Bill called out of the blue and while catching up, he invited me to pitch to his next project. This one, coming from William Morrow in Spring 2007 is entitled You Said What? and is more of the same. In these 1000 or so word essays we explore some of the great lies, misstatements and non-statements throughout history.I have written 14 of these essays for the collection, including pieces on James K. Polk’s misstatement to Congress that led to war in 1846, the great P.T. Barnum, Grover Cleveland’s secret cancer surgery, John Keely’s etheric energy and other wonders. I just today heard back from Bill with his edits. I was very pleased to see how little line editing was done and now look forward to the finished product.Beyond that, I’ve accepted a little more freelance comics editing and have discovered how challenging this can be without my DC rolodex and a slush pile to sift through. It has, though, put me back in touch with several comics colleagues which has been a bonus.And today I have finished the first draft of my Spider-Man essay for BenBella’s SmartPop series so it’s winding up a productive week.
Congrats on the essays. Those collections sound very interesting, I’ll have to see if the library has the first one.Jackie
Freelance *Editing*? Really? How does that work?I can see freelance grammar and fact-checking. But the “sheparding a project to completion” aspect would seem the epitome of centralized power. Am I wrong in my vision of Editor as Priest-King, or are we such a connected society that even centralized power can be de-centralized these days?