Last week I experienced the first frigid winds of autumn, and part of me is very glad. Another part, the one that enjoys long bike rides and not taking 30 minutes to put on my winter gear, is already mourning being able to work on my balcony amid my potted herbs and marigolds. So yeah, summer is rapidly coming to a close here in Canada. Which is why I’m going to spend the rest of the week reading on the balcony after work, going on long walks at lunch, and enjoying the fact that we’re entering “back-to-school” time.

(Update: Yesterday I went on a 2-hour walk in 33° Celsius weather. Summer is still kicking and I got my first sunburn of the year.)

As a total nerd, I loved school (think Hermione). September was always a special month where I could plan and prep and not yet feel overwhelmed by all the projects and work I’d taken on. Now, as a freelance editor with my own business, I still cycle through similar seasons of the year, the final quarter always being one of my best. The last few years I’ve been taking nearly all of December off to refill my creative well, and it’s been nothing short of miraculous. It’s my long-term goal to take a “slowbatical,” but right now I have no clue what that will look like.

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The Unread Shelf Project Update

I made progress! I scanned 75 books into BookBuddy and tagged them into relevant categories, namely, locations where I can find them: on my Kindle or Kobo, on my attic-office bookshelf, or on our downstairs bookshelf (and also with a few genre tags). I also logged one library book because it was already technically on my shelf, but I will be adding no more (and also, courageously, perhaps rashly, deleting my Kindle Unlimited subscription for the time being…). It’s been fun gearing up to read more books I actually own, that have been sitting patiently on my TBR for eternity, waiting forlornly on the sidelines for me to get around to them, and I never do. The only caveat to allowing library books, because I know me, is that I’ll allow myself to take out nonfiction/how-to or any library books that feed a current interest, but not stacks of novels.

(Update: Nearly immediately after writing that, I discovered a new library service called discoveREAD, where you can request mystery bundles on whatever topic you want. Perhaps your library has a version of this? Naturally, I asked for a sci-fi bundle. I don’t know how I’m going to square this discovery with my Unread Shelf Ambitions, but here we are.)

I found another app, Beanstack, through my public library that offers reading challenges and robust reading stats, which is highly motivating to me. It gamifies my reading and shows me my progress towards my goals. Plus, it has cute badges. It’s super fun, and I love that my Unread Shelf Ambitions now have a gamified engine to give them momentum and hopefully not be entirely derailed by DiscoveREADS. We’ll see.

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What I'm Reading

Currently enjoying To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers. It was one of the curated mystery books my librarian selected for me! I’ve heard great things about this author and am pleased that this is a novella. Nice change of pace. It’s about an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel where “instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the solar system instead transform themselves.” I’m excited to find out what that means! ​ ​ ​

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On the Blog

• New Blog Post: My answer to the question, “You read for a living? How fun!” What copyeditors do is very different from just “reading.” Check out the blog for my thoughts.
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• Guest Blog Post: Are you sending out short stories into the void? Here are my tips for getting published in literary journals and answering calls for submissions.
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• Free Flash Fiction: Over at HOZ, we’re rolling out flash fiction about artificial intelligence. One’s about the last AI editor on planet earth and the next is about an imminent AI rebellion brewing. Super short and sweet. I loved editing these.

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Art of the Month

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I scanned a bunch of "Morning Collages" I made a few years ago. Random art making is what I do for fun while I’m not editing. ​

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That’s it for this month! Let me know what you’re working on and how your September is shaping up.

Erika
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Editor & Owner, E.S. Editing Services​
​www.erikasteeves.com​
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P.S. I’m taking on new editing projects starting in October. If you write science fiction, horror, or other speculative fiction and need a copyeditor, I’d love to be part of your publishing team. Get in touch.​

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