PLY’s lunchtable

In the 2 days since my last blog post (the one about needing to hire 2 copy-editors), my inbox has had more “in” it’s “box” than ever! From stay-at-home moms who love 2 things — kids and spinning, to ex-editors-in-chief, to librarians, to graduate students, to actual professional copy-editors, 210 people expressed interest in working with PLY.

That’s cool.

Really, it makes me feel like if I had to walk into my high school lunchroom now, somebody would make room at a table for me and I wouldn’t grab some french fries and a nuttybar and go sit in the gym doorway with my headphones on like it was a choice I was making.

Of course, I know it’s not really about me. It’s not because I’m cool. It’s because the magazine is wonderful. Everyone that works on it (from the staff to the authors to the advertisers) really loves spinning and wants to spread the word. Still, it maked me feel a little cool. Though that feeling of coolness quickly dispersed when I realized that about half the people emailing are more qualified to do my job than I am!

In fact, many of the names that came through my inbox I want to hire just so they will be my friends. But hiring these 1-2 copy-editors is to make the magazine better, to make things less overwhelming and stressful. I need great copy-editors.

And so today I sat down and emailed the bundle to everyone on the list, which was broken into 3 groups for sanity’s sake. Of course, the first group I sent to got the wrong bundle. By that I mean I sent them the test article and also the test article’s answer sheet (such as it is).

Of course, I fixed it by changing out the test article, and I guess it’s good for them to see how I operate now, all thumbs and double-spaces after my periods (.) — a habit I can’t break. I literally have to do a search and replace after everything I write. Muscle memory, the good and bad. They say you can tell a person’s age from his/her typing. If they put 2 spaces after periods, they’re over 30, if not, younger.

So now I wait. I’m excited to see what comes back! I’m going to read them blind, so I don’t get influenced by pretty names and lots of credentials. I’m going to push down the impulse to be cool and do my job and I can’t wait to have 2 new people working on the magazine, they’re going to make it sooo cool.

Eva Fisher says:

November 19, 2014 at 7:57 pm

HI!!! I RSVP’d to your editor search yesterday and did not receive any feedback as to how to proceed. I believe I was the second person in the list ……I’d still LOVE to be considered for this opportunity should you still wanna give me a look-see. THANK YOU!!!
Eva