Where have those Bowlings gotten to, anyway?

Well, November was a busy, busy month. Alex has been hard at work, of course, and I wrote two books!

I was hired to write a non-fiction book, which I completed. I also did NaNoWriMo and won! However, that just means I wrote 50,000 words on the project. It still has a ways to go before it is done though -- maybe 75,000 more words for the first draft to be complete!

As soon as November and the books were over, I started madly trying to catch up with everything I had been ignoring for the month. Laundry, vacuuming, dishes, scrubbing everything that I'd been ignoring all month.... We also took a trip down to Tennessee for Alex's grandpa Jack's funeral. (More on that later, in a separate post.) And then it was time to start in on the parade of Christmas cookies and shopping for presents.

Sheesh! It's a wonder I'm here only 2 1/2 weeks into December! Anyway, I have a ton of pictures that I was at least able to take during November, so I will be trying to get them all posted and caught up by January.

For now, it is time to put Jack to bed. But I'll be back!

NaNoWriMo

The race is on! Every November for four years now, I have signed up to write a 50,000 word novel by November 30th at midnight. It is an exhilarating, crazy, madcap dash to the finish line with over 150,000 other writers. We kicked off at midnight and I'm 1,192 words in. Wish me luck! (And send me motivational goodies!)

new job

I just got word that I will be proofreading this website top to bottom, after finding a few typos on it a while back and notifying The Powers That Be that I was willing to proof the whole thing. This is the same company that I do editing for, so it's not an entirely new employer, but this is definitely different than my usual functions for the company!

I'm still enjoying the fact that I said "Hey, you should pay me to do ____" and was told "Yeah, let's do that!" ...rather than The Boss saying "We need ___" and me saying "I can do that!" :)

a bit more about Med Legal

It is a company that helps lawyers prepare for medical cases--like a malpractice suit, or when the insurance company won't pay for a treatment.

Basically, the lawyer has a patient and a pile of medical files, but doesn't have the time or the understanding to read through them all and get what they're actually saying. To fix this, the lawyer gets in touch with Med Legal, who has a crack team of Legal Nurse Consultants. The LNCs comb through the medical records and write up a bunch of reports which fully explain what is going on medically with the person, WITH the added bonus that they also evaluate the case from a legal standpoint.

The final step on all the reports is for them to be sent to an editor. This is where I (hopefully) come in. The editor reviews each file for grammar, formatting, style, consistency, and content. Content means does the medical data make sense? Have we covered all points that the lawyer asked for? Is every pro or con of the case addressed and pointed out for the lawyer? The content step is very important, since that's what makes the case for the lawyer.

I think that sums it up pretty well. I'll post again when I hear back from the senior editor on how I did on my test case!

writing update

I finished the test case and I think I did pretty well on it. :) Of course, I'm trying not to be too cocky until I get some feedback (should be tomorrow) but I can at least say that I did well on the content parts of the case. I can't wait for tomorrow!

first day's work

....for Med Legal, that is.

Okay, so technically I'm still doing training until I finish my first test case for this new editing job, but I have spent about 5 hours editing the files tonight and am feeling pretty happy about having flexed my writing muscles once again. :)

Tomorrow I have to finish the editing (I'm down to having some editing points to check in the morning when I am less tired) and then I have to get all the files emailed over to the senior editor by 4:00 PM. Then she gets to decide whether she still likes me. I hope she does!! :P

a response from Cape Cod chips!

This is the entirety of the email I got in response to mine:

"Thank you for letting us know.

I will forward your letter to our marketing department.

Please lt us know if we can be of any more help.

Thank you."

I guess we'll see what happens next....

the Cape Cod chip situation

I just wrote to the customer service department (after finding their weensy "contact us" link hidden at the bottom of their website). I'll post if I hear anything back. :)