197. Copyediting and the Power of Word Choices: An Interview with Sara Brady

 

[music]

Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 197 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and today I am talking with yet another Sara.  This is Sara Brady, who is a copyeditor, among many other things.  She copy edits romance novels!  This is two episodes in a row with Sara(h)s as guests, and I’m really pleased about this.  Also, I get to write Sara(h) with an H in parentheses, which gives me a really nerdy amount of joy.  Sara Brady copy edited my novella, Lighting the Flames, and in my entirely biased opinion, she’s really good at her job, but in being copy edited, I learned a lot about how she does her job.  So we discuss in depth what a copyeditor does, how her job works, and we make terrible copy editing jokes, or at least I do.  We also talk about how the choices of context and language have large consequences, and we discuss words we hate, books we love, and she has a recommendation for a book that I think many of you will want to read.  Plus, after the outro music there’s a little bonus where I nerd out about gardening because, well, nerding is a thing that I do.

But before I move on to the sponsorship and podcast information, I want to say thank you for tuning in.  I know many of you are working out, walking the dog, cleaning and cooking and commuting, probably not all at the same time, and I also know that the audience for the podcast is growing a little bit, so if you’re new, welcome!  We talk about romance and all the things here, and I’m glad you’re listening!  Thank you so much!

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And now, on with the podcast!

[music]

Sara Brady:  Okay.

Ms. Wendell:  I’d like you to introduce yourself –

Ms. Brady:  Sure.

Ms. Wendell:  – and then I would like you to tell me what being a copyeditor means.  Like, what do copyeditors do?

Ms. Brady:  Okay.

Ms. Wendell:  And what things drive you absolutely bananas?

Ms. Brady:  Oh, that’s a long list.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Also, I want to know – well, let’s start with who you are and what you do.

Ms. Brady:  Sure.  My name is Sara Brady.  I am a copyeditor on a number of topics relevant to our interests.  I copy edit romance novels for several –

Ms. Wendell:  Yay!

Ms. Brady:  – several clients.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes!  Full disclosure:  Sara was my copyeditor.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah!  And it was really fun, ‘cause it came –

Ms. Wendell:  Thank you!

Ms. Brady:  – it came right on the heels of a huge nonfiction project, and I needed something to recalibrate my brain into stories and emotions and things that were not troop movements in 1941.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  And, and footnotes and more footnotes and extra footnotes.

Ms. Brady:  The footnotes.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  We can, we can talk a little bit later about the OCR proofreading that I do, because that’s actually, you know, it’s kind of a funny thing.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh!  He throws his anus around her!

Ms. Brady:  And I am the person who stands between that and publication!

Ms. Wendell:  Thank you!  Thank you for standing between thrown anuses.

Ms. Brady:  Thrown anuses are what we try to eliminate, unless that is what both people are into.

Ms. Wendell:  Do you know that I ended up as a question on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me because –

Ms. Brady:  I did!  I heard that, and I screamed!

Ms. Wendell:  I almost walked into a tree!  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  I was walking home from work, and I walk next to the road I live on, and I started, like, waving my hands in the air?  I was like, one of my neighbors is going to see me.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I was walking the dogs, and I was so shocked I was, like, hyperventilating and nearly walked straight into a tree.

Ms. Brady:  Between that and when either Bea or Leah from The Ripped Bodice was on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me –

Ms. Wendell:  Yes!  Oh, my God!

Ms. Brady:  – I was like, someone at NPR is into romance.

Ms. Wendell:  So, there are many, there are many romance readers in the NPR world, and I just love it.

Ms. Brady:  – love it.  I love that.

Ms. Wendell:  So you copy edit romance and other things.

Ms. Brady:  Yes.

Ms. Wendell:  Now, I don’t want you to talk about, like, specific books, ‘cause obviously that would be completely uncool –

Ms. Brady:  That would be uncool.

Ms. Wendell:  – but what exactly does a copyeditor do?  Because I know there’s the copyeditor and the line editor and the content editor and other editors.  What do you do?

Ms. Brady:  Primarily what  copyeditor is doing, in addition to looking for things like misspelled words and the wrong use of punctuation and all sorts of other mechanical things that are wrong, the copyeditor is enforcing a style.  There are a number of different style books.  The primary one that’s used for magazine journalism and for books, mostly, is The Chicago Manual of Style.  It is our bible, and we love it.  There’s –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  – there’s also one called Words into Type, and some publishers use AP, which is not a particularly book-friendly style.  It’s intended for wire copy, which has to be short – [laughs] –

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  – because, you know, ‘cause they used to transmit it over wires, and that took a lot of time.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Brady:  So that, that style includes more abbreviations and more, like – AP style you, you only spell out numbers that are under ten.  Chicago style, you spell out numbers that are under 100 and large multiples.

Ms. Wendell:  Hmm!

Ms. Brady:  So you would use words to say four thousand instead of numerals.  And, you know, AP is more used for newspaper copy, because in newspapers you want to save space, because ink costs money.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Brady:  In books, it’s less of a concern, so most of the clients that I work for in the book realm use a style that is based on The Chicago Manual of Style, and that style guide govers, governs things, not just numbers, but what words are capitalized, aside from proper nouns.

Ms. Wendell:  Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh!  Like, like Internet?

Ms. Brady:  Right!  That actually is more dependent mostly on the dictionary.  The dictionary I use most of the time is Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate, and Merriam-Webster is still capitalizing Internet.  I know there are some people who prefer American Heritage, bless their hearts.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  I’m not entirely sure what American Heritage does with regard to Internet, but, you know, that’s – another thing that copyeditors do is be aware of the way language and usage are changing.  I was at the American Society of Copy Editors annual conference in Portland last month, and AP deciding to lower case Internet, that news came out on the last day of the conference, and there were cheers.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] I can imagine!

Ms. Brady:  ‘Cause there are a lot of copyeditors who are like, it’s a medium!  It should be lower case, like newspaper!  And they –

Ms. Wendell:  So you legitimately argue about things like this.

Ms. Brady:  Oh, yeah.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  It, it’s –

Ms. Wendell:  My, my little nerd heart is so happy.

Ms. Brady:  Well, it was, it was, it was very funny.  It was the first time I’d ever been to the conference.  It was six hundred copyeditors across a variety of mediums in one place, and, you know, you can’t generalize that much about an entire field, but many of us are introverts, and you –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, really!

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  You can kind of tell who the extroverted copyeditors are, because they’re staring at the other person’s shoes.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  But, you know, alcohol helps.

Ms. Wendell:  It helps at all conferences.  That’s why we’re all at the bar.

Ms. Brady:  It does!  And it was, it was a really, it was a wonderful conference.  I had a great time!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  So when you do copy editing –

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – you’re basically making sure that the language and the, the style adhere to the standard which you follow.

Ms. Brady:  Right.  And, you know, a lot of what I – some people don’t understand what I do.  Lot of people don’t understand what I do.  A lot of what I do is not necessarily telling someone that something is wrong.  It’s telling someone that the way they’ve used certain words or the way they’ve placed punctuation might confuse readers about their meaning.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.  ‘Cause it’s about meaning, not necessarily rules.

Ms. Brady:  Right, and you can find, you know, the, the different book, the different style books differ in their rules, so –

Ms. Wendell:  That’s not annoying.

Ms. Brady:  Right, right, and switching between projects and clients, you’ve got to keep a lot of, you’ve got to keep a lot of stuff straight in your head.  And I often can’t keep it straight in my head.  I have an entire Dropbox folder of style guides for my various clients, and I just flip through them sometimes, and I’m like, okay, so who uses voice mail as two words and who hyphenates break-up and –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, my gosh.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, it’s a, you know, it’s a –

Ms. Wendell:  That’s not something I could keep track of in my head.

Ms. Brady:  I, I try not to actually rely on my head.  I try to rely on the guide, because if I start trying to do it by memory I’ll mess us.

Ms. Wendell:  We’re all screwed.  So you’re, you’re basically citing all your sources while you do it.

Ms. Brady:  I’m real big on citing my sources.  I spent some time earlier in my career as a fact checker, and if I’m correcting the spelling of, you know, a, a proper name in someone’s book I cite a source.  I site Britannica or I cite that person’s official site or – I swear to God, the number of books I’ve read that don’t know there are two Fs in Georgia O’Keeffe, like, drives me up a wall.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  No!

Ms. Brady:  Three Es, two Fs!

Ms. Wendell:  Someday, if, I have, you know, I have this very particular image of the afterlife.  I have a feeling that someday in the afterlife, Georgia O’Keeffe is going to find you and be like, dude, thank you.  Thank you for that.  I owe you.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs] Her, her, and the fact that Jack Daniel’s is not a plural, it’s a possessive.

Ms. Wendell:  No, it’s totally a possessive!

Ms. Brady:  It is Tennessee whiskey made by a gentleman named Jack Daniel.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  And so I’m forever putting that apostrophe in there.

Ms. Wendell:  So why do people hate copyeditors?  Why is there copyeditor hate?

Ms. Brady:  Well, people don’t be, don’t like being told their wrong.

Ms. Wendell:  Ah, well, okay, that makes sense.

Ms.  Brady:  Especially, especially with something that is emotional and personal to them, like language.

Ms. Wendell:  And writing and stories.

Ms. Brady:  And writing and stories.  As I’ve, you know, I’ve always been this person, even when I wasn’t getting paid for it.

[Laughter]

Ms. Brady:  But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned more to only really do this when I’m being paid for it, and when I am directly asked.  I am not the person on Facebook who is correcting other people’s grammar, because that person is a dick.  And it’s –

Ms. Wendell:  Well, you know what, I appreciate that, ‘cause that person –

Ms. Brady:  Right!  You know –

Ms. Wendell:  – is kind of a dick.

Ms. Brady:  – it’s not my business if someone doesn’t know the different between your, you’re, and yore.  I mean, I make my own judgments, but I’m not going to talk about it.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  You know how copyeditors console people?

Ms. Brady:  How?

Ms. Wendell:  There, they’re, their.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  There you go.

Ms. Brady:  I like that.  Yeah, that’s a good one.

Ms. Wendell:  I love copyeditor jokes!

Ms. Brady:  And I think people get frustrated – I would assume – the way that I work with a lot of my clients is that I don’t ever see their work again after I’ve turned it in.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  I make my changes, I make my notes, I make my suggestions, I return it to the assigning editor or the managing editor, and I never see if they have taken my suggestions or if they have stetted all my changes.  [Laughs] And that’s, ninety percent of the time, that’s fine with me.  It’s their book.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  It’s not, and my name is not usually on it.  And I, I, I know that some copyeditors, a lot of what we, we copyeditors take for granted is not widely known to other people, and so we might be making changes that are very basic to us, and the author might feel that we are destroying her masterpiece.  [Laughs] Or –

Ms. Wendell:  Or changing the language in a way that she doesn’t want.

Ms. Brady:  Exactly.  I find it best to have a conversation if at all possible before starting the work about the style she’s going for.  If –

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  – you know, if someone has written her dialogue in a colloquial way and doesn’t want that changed, that’s fine with me.

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  I just need to be told that before I start working, ‘cause otherwise, you know, I try to enforce Standard American English on it, and –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  – maybe that’s not what she wants.

Ms. Wendell:  So do you, do you work on some of the books that use, like, for example, a brogue or –

Ms. Brady:  I’ve edited a few.

Ms. Wendell:  There’s a word for that, and it’s falling out of my brain right now.

Ms. Brady:  I, I’ve done several set in the American South, and one, one thing the author wants to do is drop the Gs on gerunds.

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  You know, which is fine.  [Laughs] I just need to be told up front not to – and, you know, after I see it fourteen times, you know, I stop fixing it.

Ms. Wendell:  Right, of course.

Ms. Brady:  But it, it’s, I think what the copyeditor does, especially maybe for an author who’s new, can be sort of like a bucket of cold water thrown on their book, especially if they see the manuscript, it’s covered in red tracked changes, and they think that the apocalypse has happened.  And it might not even be that much is wrong.  They’re just, you know, putting commas where they’re supposed to be.  It just, it looks like a lot.

Ms. Wendell:  I once read a theory that if you’ve studied music and then you learn grammar –

Ms. Brady:  Hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – you have a better understanding of how commas work, because phrases sort of translate between music – especially if you play an instrument and you need to breathe?

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  That, that pausing within phrases of music is a little bit similar to pausing within phrases of commas, ‘cause commas not only sort of separate dependent clauses, but they also function as pieces of a sentence.

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  Do you think that’s possibly true?

Ms. Brady:  I think it’s true in some cases.  There are some places where you need a comma to indicate meaning, and it’s not necessarily where a person would breathe.  I just –

Ms. Wendell:  Eats shoots and leaves?

Ms. Brady:  Hmm?  Yeah, eats –

Ms. Wendell:  Eats, shoots, and leaves?

Ms. Brady:  In the, in the case of restrictive commas, a restrictive clause is something that is necessary to the meaning of the sentence, and it has to be enclosed in commas.  So if I say, my brother, Phil, I have three brothers, so in that sentence, the word Phil, which is his name, has to be enclosed in commas, because his name is essential to tell you which of my brothers I’m talking about.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  If I were to say my sister-in-law Missy, I only have the one, so the commas aren’t necessary there, ‘cause I can say either my sister-in-law or Missy, and I’m talking about the same person.

Ms. Wendell:  Huh!

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  How did you learn all this?

Ms. Brady:  It’s in the book.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  It’s in the book?

Ms. Brady:  It’s in the book!  It’s in The Chicago Manual of Style.  I had, when I graduated from college, I moved to New York.  I went to a post-graduate program at Columbia University that was for people interested in publishing.

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  And that’s how I got my first job, and I was hired as an administrative assistant at a magazine, and I was bored out of my skull, ‘cause after I had filed everything and done payroll and cleaned up the file room, I was like, please give me something to do!

Ms. Wendell:  Been there.

Ms. Brady:  And so they asked me to help out with copy editing and proofreading, and that was thirteen years ago, and – [laughs] – now I do this for a living!  And I always had an aptitude for finding typos and things that seem wrong.

Ms. Wendell:  Isn’t it weird sometimes that they jump out at you?

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, they do.

Ms. Wendell:  Like, whoa!  Okay.

Ms. Brady:  They, they particularly jump out at me.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I was doing research yesterday, and someone used an apostrophe-S for plural when it should have not had an apostrophe.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  I can hear you, like, cringing and moaning over there.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  And I’m sort of like, yeah, okay, blah blah blah, sales text, and then this apostrophe-S is, for me, the biggest thing on the screen.  I’m like, I don’t want to buy this from you!  You don’t know how to use possessives!  And then I’m like –

Ms. Brady:  I got a –

Ms. Wendell:  – am I a dick?  Am I a dick for thinking that?

Ms. Brady:  No!  I got a marketing email from a company that sells a lot of personalized stuff –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, God.

Ms. Brady:  – and it was something about like, Welcome to the Brady’s that they had superimposed on a T-shirt, and it was B-R-A-D-Y-apostrophe-S, and I’m like the Brady?  Just the one of us?

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  Like, there’s a lot of us, believe me.  We’ve got cousin Tom, we’ve got cousin Wayne, it’s ridiculous.

Ms. Wendell:  There’s a whole bunch on TV!

Ms. Brady:  I know!  They’re all over the place!

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] It’s so horrible!

Ms. Brady:  It’s, it’s like there was no food in Ireland, so we all had to come here and have more kids.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] So you, you trained, you did your thing, and you ended up copy editing romances.  What is that like?  Do you like doing that?

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs] I do!  I, I prefer editing fiction to nonfiction.  It just goes faster to me when there’s a story.  I like, I mean, I liked romance novels already.  So what, how it happened, I got laid off from that magazine job I mentioned.  The, the, the magazine closed, which was personally devastating to me.  I don’t recommend getting laid off from your dream job when you’re twenty-five, ‘cause –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, dude!

Ms. Brady:  – it will, it will really do your head in for a while.

Ms. Wendell:  Can you, can you say what magazine?

Ms. Brady:  It was called Premiere.  It was about movies.

Ms. Wendell:  I remember that magazine!

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, it went out of business in 2007.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, man.

Ms. Brady:  It was very sad.  And so during my, you know, several-months-long period of moping on my couch and watching Food Network and collecting unemployment, I answered an, an ad on Mediabistro for copyediting.

Ms. Wendell:  Whoa, nice!

Ms. Brady:  And I did a test, and they sent me a book, and that’s –

Ms. Wendell:  Off you go!

Ms. Brady:  – how it started, yeah!  It’s, there’s something about the logic of it that appeals to me.  I like to put things in order.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Brady:  You wouldn’t know that by looking at my house, but –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  – you know, as far as work is concerned – and, and so from there, it sort of, it sort of snowballed.  I, you know, all my friends knew I was looking for work.  A lot of my friends work in book publishing, and so they would say, hey, we need some help over here.  I believe you connected me with a job at one point?

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, I remember that.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, it was wonderful!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Do you still do that?

Ms. Brady:  Yes, I do.  Yep.  Great.

Ms. Wendell:  Awesome!

Ms. Brady:  And so it just, it grew into a business.  It’s not my entire income, but it’s a, it’s a good chunk of it, and I, I, I, I like getting paid to read.  One of my clients paid me to proofread Pride and Prejudice when they were putting it into E.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, that’s terrible!

Ms. Brady:  I’d never read it before!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I’m so sorry!

Ms. Brady:  I know!

Ms. Wendell:  That must have just been so terrible for you!

Ms. Brady:  I, I wanted to, I kept wanting to standardize the capitalization, and, and my editor’s like, please don’t change Jane Austen.

Ms. Wendell:  Just leave Jane alone.  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  Leave Jane alone!  [Laughs] She went through enough!  But, yeah, I, I proofread that, and then I watched, like, three movie adaptations in a weekend, and my friends are like, okay, you need to come back to the twenty-first century now.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  So, when you are copy editing a romance –

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – I know not only do you talk about – ‘cause I know from having been copy edited by you – that not only do you address things like commas, semicolons, dashes – which I will fuck up for the rest of my life, and I’ve just learned to accept that –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, there’s, there’s three kinds of them, and nobody ever knows which one is right.  I prefer the em dash in most applications.

Ms. Wendell:  What’s an em dash do?

Ms. Brady:  An em dash is often used especially in dialogue where you would normally use a semicolon?  Some publishers don’t like semicolons in dialogue, and so you can use it to join two independent clauses rather than a period.

Ms. Wendell:  And is that a dash with two spaces on either side, or is that a dash where the letters are right next to the dash?

Ms. Brady:  Almost all publishers in print close up the spaces on the sides of a dash.  On the Internet, you’re likely to leave them open because it’s less reliable about where the line break will be.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, that I knew.  I –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – I, I am a, I break all kinds of style rules just for ease of reading on a screen?

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  For example, in HTML you have a <br> tag or an, a <p> tag, and a <p> encloses it in what’s technically a paragraph –

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  Right, but with our style sheet a <p> means that there’s a space, there’s a whole line between the paragraphs, which makes it easy on your eyeballs –

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – ‘cause, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve read our site?  We use a lot of words –

Ms. Brady:  You do use a lot.

Ms. Wendell:  – all at once.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  Like, lots of them in a row, so we have to break up the visible paragraphs and intersperse different, you know, large of small elements to make that not just, like, this wall of words of –

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  – oh, my God, make it stop.  But that’s a totally different style than print.

Ms. Brady:  Right.  Buzzfeed actually puts their style guide online, and it’s, it’s kind of a neat thing to peruse, the way they have adapted rules for, for the medium.  One of the, the talks I attended at the copyeditors’ conference was by the copyeditors from The Onion and The A.V. Club.

Ms. Wendell:  Okay, that’s seriously cool.  Was that a cool session?

Ms. Brady:  They are, they are brilliant.  They have an entire section of their style guide devoted to Star Wars and to Game of Thrones and to various other things that are relevant to their readers’ interests.  There was a whole argument over the spelling of the word doughnut.  It was, it was hilarious.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Nice!

Ms. Brady:  It might have been less hilarious to people who aren’t copyeditors maybe.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, man.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  That’s amazing.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  Like, you, you always capitalize Wookie, even though it’s a species, which is not something you would do with any other species.

Ms. Wendell:  But in that context it’s like a proper name.

Ms. Brady:  Exactly.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, my goodness.  That’s so cool!  Oh, my gosh, I’m nerding out over here.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Like, I’m writing down a note:  Link to style guides for –

Ms. Brady:  They, The A.V. Club’s copy desk is on Twitter, and they’re very funny.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  As you might assume.

Ms. Wendell:  I, I remember seeing the NPR standards –

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – people when the, the llama was loose on the street and everyone was covering it.  The NPR standards editor was instructing everyone, it is an alleged llama; it could be an alpaca.

Ms. Brady:  Could be an alpaca!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  And I was like –

Ms. Brady:  That person –

Ms. Wendell:  – alleged llama.

Ms. Brady:  – knows copy editing and fact checking.

Ms. Wendell:  You are my favorite human being, NPR standards person.  Alleged llama.  Could be an alpaca.

Ms. Brady:  It could be two kids in a suit!  We, they were pretty far away.

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah, like, we don’t even know!

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  So one of the things that you do, I also know, is not only addressing language and, and punc-, or not only addressing punctuation and the use of it and how to make a sentence make sense –

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – but also you address language.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  We try – we:  I’m going to speak for all the copyeditors in the world –

Ms. Wendell:  Feel free, ‘cause they’re, it, they’re, I, I think that they’re fine with that.  You all agree on everything, right?

Ms. Brady:  We’re, we’re a monolith; it’s okay.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  What – I mean, a copyeditor edits at, at her, at her most basic is another pair of eyes on the manuscript –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  – and is another point of view, and so – and copyeditors are trained to read for nuance, and so we can look out for things like unintentionally insensitive usage or outdated terms.  If someone is using the word Oriental to refer to a person?  That is something that the copyeditor should note and politely point out that that’s not a thing we do anymore, and if your book is a contemporary –

Ms. Wendell:  You really don’t do it anymore.

Ms. Brady:  The, the character saying it is going to sound like an old bigot.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] And if the character is an old bigot –

Ms. Brady:  Right!  It’s all, it’s all intent.  Your words, words have power, and we –

Ms. Wendell:  What?!

Ms. Brady:  Yeah!  You know.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  So if you see a character using language that is potentially offensive –

Ms. Brady:  You flag it, you call it out, you – and in my case, since I’m not generally seeing the text again, you just pray they listen to you.  Yeah, it, it, we, we try to call out usage that people may not know is problematic if they’re not spending all their time thinking about these issues.

Ms. Wendell:  You want to hear the funniest copy editing mistake that I made?

Ms. Brady:  Absolutely.

Ms. Wendell:  I still laugh about this.  So in, in my first book, Beyond Heaving Bosoms –

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – I used lingus instead of lingam?

Ms. Brady:  Nice.

Ms. Wendell:  And the copyeditor was like, you are currently referring to an Irish airline, and I believe you are trying to refer to a vulva.  And I was like, this is the best copy edit ever!

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs] That’s tremendous.  I like that a lot.

Ms. Wendell:  I was super proud of myself for that one?  That’s, like, the best mistake I’ve made in a while.

Ms. Brady:  The, the, I, I forget the – they’re not spoonerisms; they might be called eggcorns – for when someone hears, you know, because we have both spoken and written language, someone hears something but never sees it written?

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.  I do that a lot.

Ms. Brady:  I, I, I was reading something a few weeks ago, and the author had written that someone turned a death ear.  Instead of, you know, an ear that can’t hear, one that is dead.

Ms. Wendell:  A dead ear.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  A death ear.  And –

Ms. Wendell:  Death, death ear.

Ms. Brady:  Death ear, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Ohhh.

Ms. Brady:  It was like, that’s not a thing.

Ms. Wendell:  There’re a couple of those I notice, that when you hear it on-, when you only hear it and you never see it written –

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – there, should, should have becomes should of, O-F.

Ms. Brady:  Right. 

Ms. Wendell:  That’s very, that’s very common.

Ms. Brady:  It is, and sometimes it can be used in dialectical dialogue, but a little of that goes such a very, very, very long way.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Right.  Dialect written down is sort of like saffron.

Ms. Brady:  Yes.

Ms. Wendell:  It needs to be used very sparingly.

Ms. Brady:  Yes, that’s, that’s a good –

Ms. Wendell:  It’s, it’s a very expensive language.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs] I have a, a good friend, you know, a voracious reader, and once in a business meeting said something about a pair-a-dig-em shift, and everybody in the room sort of stared out her, and –

Ms. Wendell:  Ooh!

Ms. Brady:  – yeah, she’s going to kill me for telling that story, but –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  – she’d never heard the word paradigm said out loud, and, you know, it’s a thing.

Ms. Wendell:  There’re a couple words that I have, I have happily mispronounced and then realized that, you know, it’s funny that way?  Even my kids, like, for example, instead of regular, their, they, for a very long time they thought it was reg-lee-er.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Reg-lee-er, and my, when my older son was a toddler, he routinely mixed up the syllables for sofa and called it the fosa.

Ms. Brady:  Nice!  That’s adorable.

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah, so we still use these words, and they’re like, Mom!  God!  It’s embarrassing!

[Laughter]

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  So you were saying earlier that language changes.

Ms. Brady:  It does.

Ms. Wendell:  It changes really fast now.

Ms. Brady:  And I think a lot of – it, it changes fast.  It’s, a lot of folks who, who sort of focus on this professionally are concerned about the loss of regional usage because of the way our culture is becoming a little more universal?  Obviously it’s splintered into channels.  You can, you know, you can get all of your media from where you want it.  It’s not just, you know, the six o’clock news on NBC anymore.  But people around the country are starting to speak the same way, because we all listen to the same sources, and so some of, some small, some regionalisms are beginning to go away.  But, yeah, language is changing faster than it ever has.  One of the things that I focus on when I’m copy editing historicals is using the date of first usage in the dictionary to make sure that a character should be using that word?

Ms. Wendell:  That’s a thing I see a lot of readers picking up on too.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  Yeah.  A lot of language was coined in the twentieth century around those two world wars, and so if you’re writing something that’s set in the nineteenth, you might not be able to use some of the terminology that we do.  I feel like, I feel like it was in the season premiere of  Outlander that Claire kept saying something was okay, which is a term that was coined in the nineteenth century, and I’m like, isn’t Jamie wondering what she’s talking about?

[Laughter]

Ms. Brady:  I, and I, I copy edited a book a few years ago that was set in ancient Rome, and I was, you know, going through my word list and making my usual set of objections, and then in the, the letter to the writer – ‘cause for most of my clients, you write an editorial letter and explain what you’ve done and cite your sources and then – for that one I said, well, they wouldn’t be speaking English anyway, so –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, well.

Ms. Brady:  – so I really feel like it’s fine.

Ms. Wendell:  I always, I always like film world, worlds like in How to Train Your Dragon, all the adults are Scottish, and all the kids are American?

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs] Sure!

Ms. Wendell:  That’s my favorite.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  ‘Cause that just creates two completely separate languages.

Ms. Brady:  Exactly.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] What are some things that you see frequently that you wish would change?

Ms. Brady:  Well.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  That, I mean, I know it’s a relatively small list.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  Yeah.  I’m, I’m, like most other copyeditors, not an easily irritated person.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah, you, you kind of have to have a very thick skin, I’m assuming.

Ms. Brady:  I have, I have my list of copyeditor pet peeves, which overlaps in some ways with my list of reader pet peeves.

Ms. Wendell:  Hmm!

Ms. Brady:  Some of them – and that’s partly the reason why I would not want to copy edit a writer that I really enjoy reading, you know, for free.  The ones I give money to, rather than the other way around.  You know, I don’t want to know if, you know, Julie James does not know the difference between your, you’re, and yore.  I think that would break my heart.  [Laughs] I’m sure she does.  She went to law school.  So one of the things, the, the, the immediate thing that sort of gets to me – and I, I don’t know if this is a difference between the kind of writers who plot ahead of time or the kind who make it up as they go along – when they sort of forget how they spelled a character’s name earlier in the book.

Ms. Wendell:  Ooh, crap.

Ms. Brady:  I, there was one series that I was enjoying very much.  It was about, you know, it was a family of bajillion siblings, and they all had their own book, and one of them was named Jonathan, and at various points his name would be spelled –on or –an.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, no.

Ms. Brady:  And I never actually read his book because – [laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  You were afraid there – wait, maybe there’re two of them!

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, maybe, maybe she’s just been switching back and forth to let on that there’s an evil twin, and I should really read that book, but it was, it was so frustrating to me.  This was, this was not something I was copy editing.  This was something I was reading for pleasure, and it was, so it was in the finished book, and it was, and, you know, I, I know there are lots of pressures on publishers.  I know they’re, you know, trying to get books out faster and cheaper, but especially with series, you need to make a, a bible.  You need to make a list and make sure that, like, people’s eye colors don’t change in between books, and their names are spelled the same, and –

Ms. Wendell:  I know just what you mean.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  It’s, that, that is particularly frustrating to me.  It – and I, I understand how easily it can happen, but it, I, I think writers should make a list.

Ms. Wendell:  I know a couple people who, who specialize in making series bibles.  Like, they, they will, that’s, that’s what they do professionally.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  That’s their specialty.

Ms. Brady:  That’s one, that’s one thing that I love about the Kit Rocha Beyond books?

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah?

Ms. Brady:  I, I am just awed by what a professional product they put out?  I, I know they have a, a lady who does their series continuity, and she’s incredible at it.  I, I just, I love those books.  I have, I have trouble with some self-published titles sometimes, and I think they do a really nice job in making it the most polished product it possibly can be before they sell it to readers.

Ms. Wendell:  That’s – I think that in, in a lot of ways, readers are very forgiving of a book that makes them have powerful feelings?

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  But –

Ms. Brady:  I, and I can, I can do that too.  Hey, I read that whole series with Jonathon and –

Ms. Wendell:  Jonathon and –than.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  And –than.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  I haven’t read the whole thing, but I’ve read, I read, like, six of ‘em before it really got to me.

[Laughter]

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, I can be, I can be swept away in it.  It’s just that it interrupts the book for me in a way that, that, that really annoys me, and it, it, it interrupts the book for me and makes me feel disrespected as a reader, in a way that I think a lot of readers might not.

Ms. Wendell:  And it’s interesting; that line is in a different place for every reader.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  Like, the things that pull someone out of a book are different from the things that pull someone else out of a book.

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  And they’re two totally different set, sets of things.

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  And you have, you have, like, two areas working against you, both as a reader and a copyeditor.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  So you have the, the rules and the style and the usage problems where you’re like, oh, well, hello, stray comma –

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs] Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – and then you have Jonathon-than.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  Or I have, if it’s – I don’t read much paranormal or fantasy, but if, in, in the stuff that I do, I, I want there to be rules, and I want the rules to be adhered to.  Like, if you’ve made up a language and a word is a noun, you should know what its plural form is.  [Laughs] And, and sometimes I find that –

Ms. Wendell:  You should be consistent.

Ms. Brady:  Right.  It’s like, you know, J. R. R. Tolkien was a linguist.  Like, he made up languages; he was pretty good at it.  It’s a hard thing to do.

Ms. Wendell:  It is something of an art.

Ms. Brady:  It is!  And so, yeah, that’s, that’s something that’ll pull me out if I’m like, wait a minute, you were using that as a plural, and now you’re using it as a singular.  Is it like sheep?  Are these aliens like sheep, that there is no –

Ms. Wendell:  It’s like mail.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Mail and, and email sheep.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs] Exactly.

Ms. Wendell:  Do you know what words, like, I have a couple words that I really hate, and, and, and I try not to talk about it, ‘cause it makes me sound like a pedantic dickbags?

Ms. Brady:  Is it the one that’s a synonym for damp?

Ms. Wendell:  Moist?  No.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, I hate –

Ms. Wendell:  Moist, moist doesn’t bother me.

Ms. Brady:  Ugh!

Ms. Wendell:  Moist just makes me think of Duncan Hines, and then I want to have cake.

Ms. Brady:  I can only deal with it in relation to cake.

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah!  But –

Ms. Brady:  But in any other application it, like, it makes my spine sort of bend back on itself, like –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh!

Ms. Brady:  I hate that word.

Ms. Wendell:  I hate emails.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah?

Ms. Wendell:  I hate that word.  It makes –

Ms. Brady:  You’d rather it be –

Ms. Wendell:  E-, mail is plural and mail is singular, and email is already plural; it doesn’t need to be emails.

Ms. Brady:  Huh!  That’s a good one.

Ms. Wendell:  It, it, it, I don’t, it’s, it’s, that is what makes my spine bend back on itself:  emails.  I need to go check emails.  Grr!

Ms. Brady:  Ooh, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Or I need to go write a blog.  Like, the whole thing?

Ms. Brady:  I, I correct that constantly.  No, it’s a blog post.

Ms. Wendell:  Or entry works too, but blog –

Ms. Brady:  I’ll go write a newspaper.

Ms. Wendell:  – the, the blog is, like, the whole compendium of all the content.  If I was going to go write my blog, I’d need, like, eleven more years.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, that would take a while.

Ms. Wendell:  It would be very arduous.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  So emails is just ugh.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  I’ve got to go check emails.  No, you don’t.

Ms. Brady:  No, you don’t!  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Just, just, ugh.  That’s, that’s a word that always makes me twitch.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  And then there’re phrases like it is what it is.

Ms. Brady:  Ugh.  That’s not even a thing.

Ms. Wendell:  Thank you!  Thank you!  Like, I’ve had to bar my husband from saying it.  Like, oh, it is what it is.  No.  That’s, like, passive-aggressive complaining.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Stop.

Ms. Brady:  It’s like, stop coming at me with these weak-ass tautologies and come up with an opinion.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] Yes!  Oh, and, and just throwing it out there?

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Are you just throwing it out there about it is what it is?

Ms. Brady:  I, someone on Twitter several months ago said something about circling back – oh, reach out and circle back, and I was like, are you doing the breaststroke?

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] Reach out and circle back.

Ms. Brady:  Reach out and circle back!  That’s how your arms move in the breaststroke!  Like – I, I’m pretty sure it was a sports journalist talking.

Ms. Wendell:  I just want you to know I’m breaststroking right now!

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  It totally is reach out and circle back!  [Laughs] And you know –

Ms. Brady:  Sometimes when I –

Ms. Wendell:  And you know, when people listen to this –

Ms. Brady:  – sometimes when I’m copy editing I need to sort of wave my hands around in the air to figure out what the characters are doing and to – the other day I was trying to shake hands with myself.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  To figure, and I was, I was debating –

Ms. Wendell:  Interpretive copyeditor dance.

Ms. Brady:  – I was debating if it was worth, like, leaning over the cubicle to my coworker to be like, can you shake my hand and let me see if I can do this with my thumb?

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  To see if it was, like, physically possible.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I’m crying now.  [Laughs] I just picture people listening to this episode, like, standing in the middle of the street breaststroking and shaking their own hands.

[Laughter]

Ms. Brady:  And most of the copyeditors I know who do stuff – like, I used to work for a magazine that had a lot of fitness, it was a fitness and healthy living focused publisher, and so we’d be copy editing instructions for yoga poses or other, you know, weightlifting, and, and trying to write out how to do stuff like that with good form, you’d, you’d be sitting there at your desk just sort of waving your arms in the air and –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  – and, and occasionally you’d go into someone else’s office and be like, okay, I’ma, I’ma do, I’m going to read this out loud, and you do it, and we’ll see if it looks like, you know, a deadlift.

Ms. Wendell:  So now, of course, I have to ask if you ever have to do that with sex scenes.

Ms. Brady:  Sometimes.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, gosh.

Ms. Brady:  I, I –

Ms. Wendell:  Like, in, in what context do you, does the choreography of a sex scene become troublesome?

Ms. Brady:  Generally, you want to wonder if the person on top is levitating.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  Sometimes it’s –

Ms. Wendell:  Like, he’s up on his elbows, and he reaches down between to, to rub at her little pearl, but –

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  – how is he holding himself up?

Ms. Brady:  Also, he’s got his head vag-, vaguely in the area of her chest, and how tall is he again?  And –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  – there’s, there’s some of that.  There’s some making sure that people take off clothing only once?

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yes, that’s important.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  I have done very little copy editing of sex scenes that have more than two participants, and, and that is, that is a mitzvah for me, ‘cause it’s easier to keep track of two people.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I cannot even imagine writing and then copy editing ménage.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  It – mm – you, you have to be real good at managing your pronouns, that’s for sure.

Ms. Wendell:  Especially if it’s, like, multiple, like, more, more than three.

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  ‘Cause you’ve got, like, yeah, that’s a lot of parts.

Ms. Brady:  And I think it extends beyond love scenes.  It extends to fights, it extends to sports.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yeah.

Ms. Brady:  Like, think of something trying to, you know, describe a basketball game.  Like – [laughs] – that can be excruciating in the wrong hands.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yeah, that would, those would be my hands who should not be doing that.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Ugh!  So what are the other things that happen in romance that are really unique, that you only see there and have to deal with?

Ms. Brady:  Gosh, well, I’ve copy edited more retired Navy SEALs than actually exist in the world.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] I’m sure you have!

Ms. Brady:  Like, I swear, I don’t think there are this many of them.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I want, I want more military romances that are about somebody other than a SEAL.  Like, I would legit read a series about the, the people who work in the armed forces who do, like, maintenance.  Cooking.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Garbage collection.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah!

Ms. Wendell:  Laundry!  Can you imagine military laundry?

Ms. Brady:  Oof.  I, no.  [Laughs] Like, they must be –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, talking about copy editing some smells.

Ms. Brady:  They must be amazing at getting stains out.

Ms. Wendell:  Right?

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Seriously.

Ms. Brady:  One, one thing that will often stop me short as an editor is just when the, the world I’m reading doesn’t bear much similarity to the world we live in, and it’s a con-, contemporary, and it’s supposed to?  I, I’ve worked on a number of Westerns that seem to be set in this magical land where everybody who does agriculture is white.

Ms. Wendell:  What?!

Ms. Brady:  That’s, that’s not really how we get our food in this country any more.  [Laughs] And so if you’re running, like, a, a, a beef ranch, everybody who’s working with those cows is not likely to be named Steve, and, you know, it’s just, it’s a thing that’ll take me out of the book and, and make me wonder what the author is trying to say.  Julia Spencer-Fleming had a great book a few years ago that was about, the mystery focused on undocumented immigrants working in dairy farms in upstate New York?

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, which one in the series?

Ms. Brady:  It’s I Shall Not Want.

Ms. Wendell:  I remember that one.

Ms. Brady:  And that book was incredible!  And I’m unfamiliar with a lot of large-scale agriculture, but after I read it I was like, yeah, that makes sense.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Brady:  But, and so I, I would – [laughs] – I, I would hope a lot of writers who are interested in, or not even interested in, but setting their books among the world of the people who, who do jobs that, that are unfamiliar to a lot of people, like running ranches –

Ms. Wendell:  How your food gets made.

Ms. Brady:  How your food gets made.  Your food gets made by – [laughs] – different people than we see a lot of romance novels written about.  I think in some ways it’s a nostalgia for an imagined past.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Brady:  It’s, it’s thinking about some golden age that existed forty years ago, but that, that wasn’t what existed forty years ago.  Forty years ago was the, you know, the, the end of Vietnam.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Brady:  Forty years ago was the middle of the second wave of the women’s movement.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  It wasn’t Beaver Cleaver and –

Ms. Wendell:  Everyone happy to do what they were doing and be assigned prescribed roles that they stayed within.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  There seems to be this nostalgia for, like, the first three years of the 1950s, except if Korea wasn’t happening?

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah.  So you have to learn, you have to know a lot of history and cultural context, too.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, and a lot of that comes with the, with the reading.  With, you do this –

Ms. Wendell:  Especially ‘cause you do a lot of nonfiction.

Ms. Brady:  – you do this for a few years and it – I, I do much more fiction than I do nonfiction, but the nonfiction books tend to be real long.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah, I remember you telling me how many, many, many pages of footnotes in some of those books, and I was like, oh, my God!

Ms. Brady:  It was – I, I, I hope someone is really enjoying that book, that’s all.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Someone out there is reading that book and is so excited.

Ms. Brady:  I hope –

Ms. Wendell:  Like, they are just having all the joy, because you know that there’s another nerd out there whose heart goes pitter-patter at the idea of 750 footnotes.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, and we’ve taken all the anuses out of it, so it’s safe for reading aloud.

Ms. Wendell:  Well, see, now I’m disappointed.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Now I’m bummed out.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  One thing I’ve noticed as a reader is the proliferation of certain words that get moved from book to book, like –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – ‘cause, you know, romance, romance authors are also romance readers, so all of a sudden all the clouds are scudding across the sky.

Ms. Brady:  Huh!

Ms. Wendell:  It’s like there’s a word that, that shows up, and then all of a sudden it’s everywhere, and, or there’s, there’re ideas that pop up in a book, and then all of a sudden they’re copied everywhere.  Sort of like how Georgette Heyer made up details about the Regency –

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  – and now we, we take them as, as fact, because we’ve read them in, like, umpty-badrillion books.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Is that something that you see as well?

Ms. Brady:  [Sighs] Maybe?  [Laughs] No concrete examples of it are coming to mind.  I’m more likely to, to focus on if there’s a particularly unusual construction that an author uses repeatedly?

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  Or a usual construction that an author uses repeatedly.  I, I, I’ve noted, you know, if you’re – and, and I believe you’ve pointed this out before – if your male main character thinks, every first person internal monologue of his begins with Damn! –

Ms. Wendell:  Yes!  Why?  Why?

Ms. Brady:  – it starts to sound – [laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Why does that happen?  Do, do all men think like that?

Ms. Brady:  I, I don’t think so, although a good amount, a good proportion of my internal monologue starts with fuck, but –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] Or God damn it.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, exactly.  What now?

Ms. Wendell:  Motherfucker!  [Laughs] Oh, for Christ’s sake!

Ms. Brady:  So when, when something sounds repetitive within a manuscript, it is something I will point out.  I have a few clients who will send me – [laughs] – I guess, who allow their authors to express preferences about their copy editing?

Ms. Wendell:  Uh-huh.

Ms. Brady:  And so sometimes they will request the same copyeditor for subsequent books in a series, and that always makes it easier, ‘cause you’re familiar with the person’s voice, you’re familiar with which homonyms they might mix up?

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  And you are, you, you’ve met the characters before!  It’s, I, I find it very difficult to do the sixth book in a series –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  – without having read any of the previous ones, and I’m like, okay, who is this?  Whose kid is this?  Whose wife is this?  Why am I supposed to care?  Stop, stop introducing characters!

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  And, and that’s very rewarding to the reader, and I’ve been the reader for whom that is very rewarding, but as the copyeditor you’re like, okay!  [Thump!]  How many brothers does he have?

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] And why does the spelling of Jonath(oa)n keep changing?

Ms. Brady:  Exactly!  Exactly.

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] So you notice, then, the, the, the literary tics of different writers.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, I do.

Ms. Wendell:  They sort of pop out like a pattern.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm?

Ms. Wendell:  Like, I happen to know I really like the word just, and I try not to use it just so much?

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  Are there tics that you’re sort of like, yeah, it’s just the style, or do you try to point them out to make the writing a little bit less – I don’t want to say interruptive or obtrusive.  Just to, just to make it not pop out to someone else.

Ms. Brady:  I will note it in some places.  Mostly what I’m doing is not – to be perfectly honest, I’m usually on a short deadline and a flat fee, so what I’m doing is not re-architecting someone’s entire book.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.  You’re looking to do –

Ms. Brady:  I’m –

Ms. Wendell:  – the consistent application of grammatical and language rules.

Ms. Brady:  Right.  Sometimes it’s triage copy editing.  You stop the bleeding and make sure that it’s –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  – the book is not bleeding to death.

Ms. Wendell:  Triage copy editing?

Ms. Brady:  Yes!

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, my goodness.

Ms. Brady:  Sometimes you just want to fix the most egregious things that might completely derail the book.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep, and then it’s just sort of like, yeah, and that’s about all I can do.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, and –

Ms. Wendell:  Triage copy editing.

Ms. Brady:  – one of my favorite – I’ve been in, I have been in a rut for about two months.  I’ve only been rereading in my spare time?

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  And I’ve been rereading the entire Shelly Laurenston Pride series?

Ms. Wendell:  [Good book noise]

Ms. Brady:  Because it’s so silly and diverting?  It, it pushes a button in my brain that just makes, that, that restores my soul.  [Laughs] That restores –

Ms. Wendell:  I know exactly what you mean.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  And nobody writes like her, either.

Ms. Brady:  She, no, you’re right!  And she has a lot of these stylistic tics, and it’s very conversational, and sometimes ungrammatical, and she capitalizes pronouns in a way that drives me up a God-damn wall, but I –

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs]

Ms. Brady:  – I love those books, and, and they’ve been a lifesaver for, like, the last two months.  I have not felt like reading anything new.

Ms. Wendell:  Have you read her Call of Crows series?

Ms. Brady:  I haven’t, and I saw the review, and I’m, I’m kind of – so, I, I only read the Pride series.  I got, I got, like, the one, the eighth or ninth book in the series on NetGalley –

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  – and I read the, the blurb copy, and I thought when they called the character a honey badger it was a euphemism.

Ms. Wendell:  Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

Ms. Brady:  And then I read the book!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Okay, right now – and, and this is risky because, you know, breaking someone’s reading slump is a really hard thing to do –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – but I already know you’re on board with the unique awesomeness that is Shelly Laurenston and the way in which she builds a world that is so very similar and very close to reality?

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  But with characters who sound like real people?  Right, so the first book in the series is The Unleashing, and it’s 99 cents right now.  Okay?

Ms. Brady:  I, I will – yeah.  I’ve been, I’m –

Ms. Wendell:  I’m going to send you the link.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I’m going to send you the link, because it’s really un-, really important that you at least have it when you get back to, you know, reading new books.  The thing I love about this series is that I’ve read her Pride series, and I’ve read the other books that she’s written, and, and I love the dragons –

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  – because they’re, like, super violent, campy fairy tales of, of female kickassery –

Ms. Brady:  That’s sort of, that, that’s her aesthetic!

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah.

Ms. Brady:  Super violent, campy fairy tales!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Yes, that is her, that is her jam, and I am so there for it.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  And I was, I was doing a, a podcast interview with Lauren Dane recently, and she was saying that the thing about her, about Laurenston’s books is that we’re, we’re used to the alpha hero.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  All of her heroines are alpha heroines.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  They take exactly zero shit.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  So I, I, okay, this is a risky, ‘cause it, it’s really hard to interrupt somebody’s reading slump, and I have totally been in a slump where you just have to reread things, ‘cause that’s what your brain wants to do.  It doesn’t want to construct anything new, it wants to revisit things that are fun and familiar, but the, the first book is 99 cents, and the second book is so good.  Like, the first one is really enjoyable and incredibly fun and emotional and really satisfying, and then the second book is even better, so the thing that I think you will like best is that the, it’s a whole Norse world.  It’s all Norse mythology –

Ms. Brady:  Hmm!

Ms. Wendell:  – and all of the major Norse gods have sort of representatives on earth who are somewhat human but also superhuman in a lot of ways.

Ms. Brady:  Is Chris Hemsworth there?  Is it Chris Hemsworth?

Ms. Wendell:  No, but it’s a lot of men a lot like him, ‘cause Thor has a crew, but they’re all kind of dumb.

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  And all the other clans make fun –

Ms. Brady:  That works for me!

Ms. Wendell:  Exactly!  All the other clans make fun of how dumb and literal the Thor warriors are, the Thor clan is.  They’re just like, oh, my God, just, just so stupid.  Would you just stop?  And they like to torment them.

Ms. Brady:  That’s awesome.

Ms. Wendell:  Like, one scene, there’s a huge party, and they keep stealing the Thor warriors’ – I don’t want to give away any, too much – but they keep stealing their food –

Ms. Brady:  That’s awesome!

Ms. Wendell:  – and they’re, like, so confused, like, did I eat that?

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Did I eat that already?  Where’d it go?

Ms. Brady:  I think one of my favorite details in the Pride series is that they just mock the, the lions for how vain they are?

Ms. Wendell:  Yes!

Ms. Brady:  I just, I, I fucking love that!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  So the thing about the, the crows is that, so there’s this one guy who is always going to this coffee shop where this young woman is working at the, at the desk, and she’s a, an Afghanistan veteran.  She’s the only one who will serve him, because he’s got that sort of flat, thousand-yard, dead-inside stare, and he scares everybody else, and she figures that he’s just got PTSD, he’s shell-shocked, he’s a vet, she’ll, she’ll serve him coffee, it’s not a big deal, and maybe, you know, maybe she’ll give him some, you know, brochures about Wounded Warrior projects, try to get him some help –

Ms. Brady:  Hmm!

Ms. Wendell:  – but in, in, one night she ends up going out to, you know, take out the trash from the coffee shop, and she sees, she sees a pimp beating up his, his, his, his hooker, and she tries to intervene, and he stabs her right in the heart and kills her –

Ms. Brady:  Hmm!

Ms. Wendell:  – and this guy who she show, serves coffee to shows up and calls out for this one particular Norse goddess to come and save her.  The, the fact that she’s reborn as this super awesome, like, creature that’s partially human, like, she can be killed, but she can also do some really rad shit.  She also insists that if she accepts the goddess’s offer – it’s, the goddess is Skuld – if she accepts Skuld’s offer, her dog has to come too.

Ms. Brady:  Yay!

Ms. Wendell:  So, so the dog also becomes a Crow, and it’s so fucking good.  Like, it’s –

Ms. Brady:  That sounds awesome?

Ms. Wendell:  It’s like, if you like the Pride series and you like the Dragon series, this takes all the best parts and puts them together.

Ms. Brady:  Okay!

Ms. Wendell:  Okay.

Ms. Brady:  You got me!

Ms. Wendell:  Okay, I’m going to send you a link.

Ms. Brady:  Awesome.

Ms. Wendell:  Okay.  You, you, you, it’s so good, and I’m so hoping that you like it, because it’s so good!

Ms. Brady:  I have vacation coming up at the end of the month, and I’m hoping that can reboot some of my, my, my new book mojo.  I’m, I, I’m so, with, with the new books, if, you know, if I’m reading something in my free time that I hate, that I’ve spent money on?

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, it’s the worst.

Ms. Brady:  I get so angry!  [Laughs] It’s like –

Ms. Wendell:  It’s.  The.  Worst.

Ms. Brady:  – okay, I spent all my working hours working on something I didn’t care for, and now I’m on a packed rush-hour Blue train, and I’m reading something I don’t like. 

Ms. Wendell:  This is, this is why I don’t like Seinfeld?

Ms. Brady:  I don’t like it either!

Ms. Wendell:  It’s like, I spend a lot of time with people who I have to tolerate who are really horrible human beings.

Ms. Brady:  Yes.

Ms. Wendell:  I’m not spending my leisure time with those same people.

Ms. Brady:  Yes.

Ms. Wendell:  Like, fuck that.

Ms. Brady:  Yes!  Oh, God, I thought I was alone.

Ms. Wendell:  No, you’re, you’re really not, and it’s weird when I try to explain to people who love the show, like, no, I really was, I never thought it was, like, falling down funny –

Ms. Brady:  Yep.

Ms. Wendell:  – and I never really liked any of them, and I was like, these people suck.

Ms. Brady:  Uh-huh.

Ms. Wendell:  I don’t want to hang out with them.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah!  [Laughs] I’m just, like, nodding my head like a bobblehead right now.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  Okay, so last question:  What books are you loving, other than the Shelly Laurenston series?

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Are there any other books you want to tell people about?

Ms. Brady:  Well, I recently made one of my biannual forays into nonfiction, nonfiction of my own volition, and I read Rebecca Traister’s All the Single Ladies?

Ms. Wendell:  Ooh!

Ms. Brady:  Which is, like, world-changing genius, I, I think.  It, it, it’s a cultural history of how single women have existed in America and how the current – the, the average age of marriage for Americans over the past fifty years, like from 1960 to 2010, went up, like, nine years.

Ms. Wendell:  Wow!

Ms. Brady:  And the social effects of more people spending a decade of their adult life single have been –

Ms. Wendell:  Substantial.

Ms. Brady:  – substantial!  And, and this book, I, I, I was reading it on paper, and so I’m – I, I do very little reading on paper anymore – and so I’m lying in bed, and I, like, turn over, and the light’s not consistent on it, and I’m like, God damn it, paper books.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  God, I have to, I have to deal with the laws of fucking light and physics?

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, and it wasn’t, it was a library hardcover, and so I’m not, like, shoving it in my purse to take to work every day, so I’m only reading it in bed at night, and it was preventing me from sleeping, because I kept, like, putting the book down and fist-pumping or, like, getting teary about injustice.  It’s, it’s remarkable.  I think a lot of romance readers would like it because it’s describing the social shifts that have made way for the contemporaries we like.

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Brady:  Like these competence porn contemporaries that I adore, Julie James and Nora Roberts, that shit would not have existed forty years ago, because your heroine was supposed to be a nineteen-year-old stable girl.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.  Whose life began when she partnered with some guy.

Ms. Brady:  Exactly.  And instead, we have these heroines who are running multinational corporations or are, you know –

Ms. Wendell:  Running their own businesses.

Ms. Brady:  – running their own businesses.  Starting their own businesses.  Moving to new towns and starting over.  Like, there are options for life that were unavailable to thousands of generations, and I find that great to read about.  I’m personally finding it pretty great to live –

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Brady:  – and, and this book is remarkable, and I think everyone should read it.

Ms. Wendell:  I totally want to read it now.

Ms. Brady:  It’s so good!  It’s so –

Ms. Wendell:  And I mean, and I’m one of those weirdoes, like, I met my husband when we were seventeen, and we’ve been together since we were nineteen.  We got married when we were twenty-five?

Ms. Brady:  Oh!

Ms. Wendell:  So, like, (a) it’s super nauseating, and (b) it’s really weird.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah!

Ms. Wendell:  We talk about, like, oh, my gosh, if we were single, what the fuck would we do?  Like –

Ms. Brady:  It’s terrible, by the way?  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I am, I am so aware, ‘cause I hear how – oh, my goodness.

Ms. Brady:  I came home on Wednesday night after being stood up for a date that I didn’t actually want to go on –

Ms. Wendell:  Ugh!

Ms. Brady:  – and I’m, I’m texting a friend of mine as I walked home in the rain –

Ms. Wendell:  Fucker.

Ms. Brady:  – and, and I’m, I’m like, I just feel like emailing all of my married friends and being like, be real nice to your spouse tonight!

Ms. Wendell:  [Laughs] Blow jobs for everyone!

Ms. Brady:  Like, do some unreciprocated oral sex –

Ms. Wendell:  Yes.

Ms. Brady:  – because it is terrible out here.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Ugh!  And the, and the, have you seen the MetaFilter thread about emotional labor?

Ms. Brady:  I have!  Yes, I have.

Ms. Wendell:  And, like, that, okay, (a) that blew my mind.

Ms. Brady:  It does not convince me to want to get married.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Seriously, it blew my mind.  Because it –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – it, it, it gave a name to so many things that I see performed, like, in my husband’s parents’ marriage and in my friends’ marriages, and it’s like, you know, do you know this, it has, this has a name.  There’s a viable reason why you’re exhausted.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  It’s because emotional labor, no one gives you credit and attention for doing what you do, and they’re like, oh, my God.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  And the idea that all, all these women are like, fuck this shit, I’m going to Crone Island?

Ms. Brady:  I, I would like to visit Crone Island.  I’m a –

Ms. Wendell:  I mean, I adore my husband, and I love my family, and I work very hard on my marriage –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – which is one of the things I’ve learned from romances, that, you know, happy endings actually take long-time work, and courtship is everlasting, but we –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  Happy endings are kind of the beginning of the thing?

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah, exactly, and I, and I love, I love my life.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  There’s another – I, I feel like I’m beating everybody I know over the head with this Rebecca Traister book, but she makes another, a really fine point about the other side of this, you know, spending the first decade or two of your adult life single is that you have to do everything.

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  Like, you go out and earn a living and then come home and make your own dinner –

Ms. Wendell:  Yep.

Ms. Brady:  – and do your own laundry, and my car needs to go to the shop before I go on vacation in a couple weeks, and it, it can –

Ms. Wendell:  Adulting.

Ms. Brady:  – obviously I’m not caring for a bunch of small humans, but just taking care of me can get pretty God-damn tiring.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yeah, adulting is exhausting, and no one tells you.

Ms. Brady:  Adulting is so tiring!  I don’t want to.

Ms. Wendell:  Adulting, no one ever tells you.

Ms. Brady:  Someone, I wish someone else would pay it!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I’m just writing this down, because I have to remember to buy this book.

Ms. Brady:  It’s, yeah.  It’s amazing.  I recommend it.

Ms. Wendell:  So, tell me this before, before I let you go and do a, do awesome things with your Saturday.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  You have read all of these books.  Is there anything you wish that writers would do a little bit differently?

Ms. Brady:  [Sighs] As a, an editor or as a reader?

Ms. Wendell:  Either.

Ms. Brady:  Hmm.  Well, sometimes I think it would help to run spell check before they turn their book in.

Ms. Wendell:  What?!

Ms. Brady:  [Laughs] There are some people who do not seem to have done that.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, come on!

Ms. Brady:  And that’s a real damn easy thing to do.  I think a lot, I think a lot of writers probably turn it off while they’re writing.

Ms. Wendell:  So it doesn’t distract them?

Ms. Brady:  So it doesn’t distract them with the red squiggly line.

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  That’s very distracting and inhibiting to, you know, to creativity, and I understand.  You just –

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, yeah.  I –

Ms. Brady:  – turn it on before you send it to your editor.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  – I actually have to, sometimes, if I’m having a really hard time writing something?

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Wendell:  I have to turn my screen black –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – and not be able to read what I’m writing, or I turn my head and look out the window while I’m writing and don’t look at the – ‘cause the writing and the reading are two different parts of my brain, I think.

Ms. Brady:  That’s interesting.  Yeah, the, the, the times that I have – I, I don’t write much, but the times that I have in the past few years, I’ve been most productive on Amtrak.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep!

Ms. Brady:  And you can just sort of type and look out the window.

Ms. Wendell:  Yep!  And you, and you don’t, you don’t, you don’t read what you’re writing and edit it while you’re writing it.

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  That’s a separate process.

Ms. Brady:  Right.  I, I always had a hard time with that.  [Laughs] It’s a, it’s real hard to get my inner editor to shut up.

Ms. Wendell:  I, I can imagine, ‘cause you are one.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.  The, the, a thing that I, I just, that I would like – let me see how I can say this.  Well, I could read a few fewer books with plot moppets and surprise babies.

Ms. Wendell:  Ohhh!

Ms. Brady:  Please, please make your grown-ass adult contemporary characters use birth control.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  What?!

Ms. Brady:  It’s, it’s one of my pet peeves.  There, I’ve read, like, two books that do that plotline really well, and one of ‘em was by Kat Latham.  The characters, like, the, the woman was, like, a public health professional and was taking birth control and got pregnant because of antibiotics, and I’m like, okay, yeah, that’s reasonable.

Ms. Wendell:  That makes sense.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, that makes perfect sense.  But every other time, and especially when it’s these – [sighs] – younger woman who gets knocked up by her boss, and then he takes over her life.  Like, that is a fucking nightmare.  I, I do not care for those, you know, Greek tycoons, virgin secretary nonsense.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I can understand.

Ms. Brady:  I, I, yeah, I can’t think of anything worse than being tied for life to someone you don’t know very well who starts to, like, tell you what to do.

Ms. Wendell:  Yeah, so you had a one-night bang stand with, and now it’s permanent.

Ms. Brady:  Right.

Ms. Wendell:  Because abortion and birth control don’t exist consistently in romance land.

Ms. Brady:  They really don’t! Right.

Ms. Wendell:  What the fuck is that about?

Ms. Brady:  The, the, the, I guess the primary thing that I want in the books I read and the books I work on is for them to take place in the world that we live in, unless they are explicitly in another world –

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  – or in a historical era.

Ms. Wendell:  Right.

Ms. Brady:  Like, I am often distracted by practical considerations when I’m working, like, I don’t think your cupcake shop is supporting you.

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  Yeahhh.  There’s a lot greater need for cupcakes in romance land than there is in the real world.

Ms. Brady:  There really is.  I mean, no one’s opening, like, a gluten-free cupcake shop.  It was Courtney Milan’s Trade Me that really opened my eyes to a lot of things that happen in contemporaries that are ridiculous.  Like, I loved, on your podcast, the way she talked about how she couldn’t read billionaire romances?

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  ‘Cause she’s like, this guy obviously is hiding all his money in the Caymans, and that is not super heroic.

Ms. Wendell:  Nope!

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  Clearly.  I mean, there’s no way that he can do that.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  It’s just not possible.

Ms. Brady:  It’s like, you are unscrupulous, and that makes you unheroic to me.

Ms. Wendell:  And you, you probably have set up many, many shelters so that you don’t have to pay taxes.

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.  Yeah, you’re going to have that surprise baby with your secretary and then start, like, putting shell corporations in the baby’s name, and that’s just shitty behavior.  The primary thing that I would encourage writers to do to have better relations with their copyeditor and better results from their copy edit is to convey their intentions explicitly at the beginning.  Use your words.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  Use your words!

Ms. Brady:  If the writer or the publisher has an established style sheet for a series and you’re not going back to the same copyeditor with every book, share that style sheet with the new copyeditor.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, so, like, consistency in information is important.

Ms. Brady:  They are important!  That’s your –

Ms. Wendell:  Ooh!

Ms. Brady:  – those are big deals with me.  Yeah.  And, and I’m, yeah, practical considerations, how these people exist in the world that we live in, and being clear about what you intend with your book.  That’s really it.

Ms. Wendell:  Sounds like good advice to me.

[music]

Ms. Wendell:  And that is all for this episode.  I want to thank Sara Brady for hanging out with me and for copy editing so many romance novels that I have very likely enjoyed, including my own, too!

This podcast was brought to you by Clean Break, a new novel from Abby Vegas that blends chick-lit and romantic suspense into one irresistible New York story.  It’s Bridget Jones meets Beauty and the Beast.  The Wall to Wall Books blog reviewed it as amazing, saying, “Once in a while you run across a book and you just really connect to it… Like the author knew exactly the kind of book you loved and hit it spot-on.  This was one of those books…” And Feeding My Addiction Book Reviews says, “If there was an award for breakthrough author, I would nominate Abby Vegas.”  Clean Break is on sale everywhere books are sold.

The transcript this month is sponsored by Kensington, publishers of Into the Whirlwind by New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin.  The shirtless saviors of BOSS, Inc., are back.  When her son is kidnapped, Megan O’Brien can’t think of anywhere to turn but to Boss, Inc., and her former flame and bodyguard, Dirk Reynolds.  The few clues they find send them spiraling into Seattle’s dangerous and dark criminal underbelly.  Kat Martin’s signature spine-tingling suspense, unforgettable action, and passion that made her a household name are on display in Into the Whirlwind.  Everyone wants a shirtless savior!  On sale now wherever books are sold.

If you have had a look or sponsored a pledge or even just looked at the tweet or the mentions about it, I want to thank you.  The podcast has a Patreon at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  Monthly pledges starting with as little as $1 will help me reach goals like commissioning transcripts and upgrading some of the equipment, so if you’ve had a look, if you’ve sponsored, if you’ve thought about it, thank you!  I really appreciate your support.

Our music is provided by Sassy Outwater.  You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater.  This is the Peatbog Faeries.  This is their album Blackhouse, and this track is called “The Dragon’s Apprentice,” which I really like because dragons!  You can find this album at Amazon or iTunes or wherever you buy your funky, funky music.

And now it is time for some compliments, and I am really enjoying this part.

Becky, people you don’t know would gladly help you move anytime, anywhere.

Maggie, if you rode around the room on a Roomba looking confused, that YouTube segment would go viral faster than any other.

Rebecca, you’re better than an everlasting guitar solo.

Tina, you are always dependable and consistently the coolest person in the room, every room.

And Megan, operas and really good pop songs will be written about the warmth of your smile.

If you’re wondering what’s going on, have a look at Patreon.com/SmartBitches.  This is one of the ways I want to thank the people who are sponsoring and supporting the show, because all of you guys are awesome!

And another way in which all of you are awesome is that you are here!  Thank you so much for tuning in and hanging out with me.  I really, really appreciate it.  If you’ve got suggestions or ideas or you have bad copyeditor jokes, email me!  [email protected]!

And on behalf of Sara Brady and Sarah me and everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend.

[your funky, funky music]

Ms. Brady:  And then I got stood up for a date on Wednesday, and –

Ms. Wendell:  Motherfucker!

Ms. Brady:  – it has rained every day, and it’s just, it has not been good!

Ms. Wendell:  It’s not okay!

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, I know!

Ms. Wendell:  I just realized that my window is open, ‘cause it’s somewhat nice outside –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – and I just screamed, motherfucker!

[Laughter]

Ms. Wendell:  I’m looking outside to see if my neighbors’ kids are outside.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah, I just went outside to drag my, my pots that have tomatoes and tomatillos planted in them –

Ms. Wendell:  Mm-hmm.

Ms. Brady:  – into the sun –

Ms. Wendell:  Good plan.

Ms. Brady:  – ‘cause my, my back yard has a fence around it, so that blocks, and also there’s a house next door that blocks some of the sun, and I just want them to get all they can, ‘cause I planted them last weekend, and they have not seen the sun.

Ms. Wendell:  You know, I planted, I, I do a vegetable garden in straw bales –

Ms. Brady:  Mm-hmm.  Ooh!

Ms. Wendell:  – because when we lived in Jersey our soil was terrible, and I, and it worked, it worked so well.

Ms. Brady:  That’s neat.

Ms. Wendell:  Oh, it’s super cool.  I learned everything from this eBook that I got on sale, that basically you, you can start two weeks before the frost date typically, because you basically put lawn fertilizer, like grass fertilizer in a bunch of straw bales and wet them down so that the inside of the straw bale starts to compost, and compost is warm –

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  – so you can plant seedlings and then cover it with a plastic cover, and that keeps it nice and warm, so you can start growing vegetables early and then keep them going late, and there’re no weeds because it’s not in the ground, it’s in a bunch of straw.

Ms. Brady:  That’s neat!

Ms. Wendell:  So it’s like super automated, low – [laughs] – low impact and low stress and really low involvement vegetable garden, but I did the whole bale conditioning thing, and then it was, like, 32 degrees!

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  For a week!

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.

Ms. Wendell:  And so I am late with my vegetables.

Ms. Brady:  I, I will have to tell my dad about that.  He is, he’s the, the gardener in our family, has been for twenty years.

Ms. Wendell:  Ohhh!

Ms. Brady:  He, the lady who has been cutting his hair since I was a child –

Ms. Wendell:  Uh-huh.

Ms. Brady:  – who cuts my brothers’ hairs and my nephew’s hair – [laughs] – is from Korea, and my dad brings her tomatoes and cabbage, and she has stopped charging him for haircuts.

Ms. Wendell:  Aww!

Ms. Brady:  Basically, they’re on a barter system at this point.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  That is adorable!

Ms. Brady:  It is!  It’s so cute!  But, yeah, he, we, we went to the garden center last week and got all the seedlings for the tomatoes and the peppers, and then we had this hideous week!  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  I know!  It was like –

Ms. Brady:  Misery and grayness and rain!

Ms. Wendell:  – 30 degrees!  What is this crap?

Ms. Brady:  It, it – pfft – I can only tell you, no, as a, a recent arrival to the area, this is not usual!

Ms. Wendell:  No, but neither was –

Ms. Brady:  This is not what May usually looks like.  [Laughs]

Ms. Wendell:  This is, this is, this, this and a three and a half feet of snow, also not usual.

Ms. Brady:  Yeah.