It has been my absolute joy to work with Dr. Elizabeth Lahti and Lisa Abia-Smith on their forthcoming book from Bloomsbury later this year, Harnessing the Power of Museums: A Guide to Programs for Well-being. Not only are Elizabeth and Lisa a pleasure to work with, but their book is also a balm for so much of what feels off in the world. This book centers creativity, attention, art, and connection and includes moving essays on a variety of universal themes. Every time I work on the book, I’m reminded of what actually matters over the long-term. I also feel hope every time I work on (and thus read) this manuscript, which is in very short supply these days. I can’t wait for this book to be out in the world.
This project came to me in three stages so far—a fourth is in the works!—so this portfolio post will also have three parts to represent each round of developmental editing.
Round 1 Developmental Editing
The first phase occurred last spring, when Elizabeth and Lisa hired me to give their manuscript a first pass. It had a different title then, and a much different structure from its final form.
Here is my first developmental editing letter for this project:
Round 2 Developmental Editing
The second round was, by far, the most intense. Because of Elizabeth and Lisa’s publisher’s timeline and my grad school schedule, I did most of this work over winter break. The manuscript was much longer at this point, so there was a lot to get through in a short amount of time. I may or may not have worked a lot of hours on this project on Christmas Day with Hulu Christmas movies playing in the background.
We did a lot of work in the document. I did a lot of developmental editing by Word doc comments, as well as copyediting, but since we were working on such a tight timeline, we were all in the manuscript via Word for Web, and we didn’t preserve any of my comments because of the live editing workflow the project needed. So, there is a lot I can’t show you, I can share my editing letter that addressed the authors’ specific questions and other developmental observations. We did this via Google Docs, so that I could get them feedback while still working on other parts of the manuscript, to accommodate time constraints. It might sound stressful, and there was time pressure, but I look back on these winter memories with fondness.
Here is the round 2 editing letter:
Round 3 Developmental Editing (Response to Peer Review)
After Lisa and Elizabeth received their first round of peer review, they asked me to go through the comments, as well as the updated manuscript, and give them feedback and suggestions. Of the three rounds, this was the lightest one. It was, once again, a pure delight to dive back into the project.
Here is the Round 3 editing letter:
Stay tuned for Round 4: Indexing
I’m so excited for this possibility. Indexing is fun!
It will get its own post because indexing is a different type of work.
Chrys Buckley 