To look at my credits list, you’d think I rarely work.

As I was updating it today, it occurred to me that people might like to know what fills those gaps.

Alan Smithees: more often than you might think, I work on a manuscript with the specific proviso that I not be credited. This could happen for one or more reasons. Perhaps the author and I have a vast difference of opinion on the book’s overall quality, and the author would like a copy edit that does not address the fundamental (in my view) flaws. Perhaps the book covers subject matter with which I would rather not be publicly associated; perhaps I find its expressed viewpoints to be odious, or stupid, or paranoid, whatever. (Sometimes all three.) As a general rule, if I’m not proud to have my name in there for whatever reason, this is what will happen.

Tech editing: I do some tech writing/editing on the side. Not a large amount, but when it comes in, it is very intensive. It pays better per hour than anything else I do, which is a sign that I undercharge nearly all my clients.

‘Lancing: yes, I still do some small-time assignment writing. Most of it doesn’t pay enough to be worth my while, so I leave the majority to the starving English BAs who have discovered that we let their costs of college attendance balloon up above a typical engineer’s gross salary, yet let our precious businesses take away their gainful employment prospects.

Serials/short stories: most jobs shorter than a novella, I no longer pull up the credits page to update. This also includes small charitable projects, in some cases. As the list gets longer, I am more willing to prune out the less significant bits.

Evaluations: a good percentage of my career gets devoted to books I’ll never work on. Here’s what happens: potential client contacts me. Book needs a ton of help. I present critique and cost options. Potential client realizes that she has two choices: pay a lot of money for a book that will no longer sound like her (because her style is bad), or find an editor who tells her what she wants to hear. By and large, I am much patient with bad writing than bad story conception, because it’s easier to fix bad writing than to make a bad story worth reading. In 90% of such cases, the author either hires me for a pure copy edit without crediting (at my request), or sniffs in annoyance and seeks out one of the aforementioned starving English BAs, who understands that her paycheck depends upon telling that author what she wants to hear. The end result is nothing that winds up on the credit list, but it does occupy my time and energy. And no, I do not charge money to evaluate a ms, unless it’s…

Developmental editing: often the client desires a complete and detailed markup of the ms, with commentary. The idea is that the solutions are best supplied from the author’s creativity informed with sound feedback, and that I will substantively edit the ms after the author has reworked it based upon feedback. I get paid for each pass of this, but it doesn’t produce an immediate addition to the credit list.

Professional development: some of my days are taken up reading stuff I would not read for pleasure, or attending workshops or conventions, and so on. This doesn’t add a credit, but I consider it a priority to add theoretical learning to the practical expertise that develops in the course of regular work.

General reading: editors and writers must read as voraciously as possible. Most are addicts who can read during any bit of wait time, some even unable to wait patiently for anything without a book. There are days when I just have to open a good book to remind myself how it’s supposed to be done, and to remind myself what I should aspire to and will never become–and to be at peace with that truth.

In between all of that, now and then, a new credit hits the list.