Proofreading Vortex

Greetings loyal readers,

We're finished with the July issue right now, and I thought it would be fun to share with you a little bit of my last few days in the office, which, until I started writing this week's blog, have been entirely devoted to proofreading the issue. If you've never experienced the utter joy that is reading the same material over and over again, looking for the tiniest mistakes, let me paint you a most wondrous picture of what a single day of proofing is like. Remember, to get the full effect, imagine you've been doing this for at least four days straight.

7:50 A.M.: It's a brand new day at the office, and I'm excited. Every morning, when I have basically a full day of proofing ahead, I always think it's going to be the most awesome thing. Don't get me wrong, I love proofreading, probably unhealthily so, but I don't love seven hours of proofreading just like I don't love seven hours of eating ice cream or watching movies. This is a fact that escapes me every time, and this morning is no different. I make my tea, grab my little green ruler (courtesy PPC/greatStuff!), and happily get to looking for errant apostrophes and mis-compounded words.

8:05 A.M.: I remember my coworkers do not make a lot of mistakes. There isn't even a comma splice to be seen anywhere. Still, spirits are high. I have my tea and Pandora, so life is basically perfect.

9:15 A.M.: I've been through about five documents so far, and have made maybe three corrections. I have about 17 more files to go through, some of which are inordinately long (think 20+ pages). Once I'm through all those, I go through them again in a black and white layout, and once more in color.