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9 on the New YorkTimes Advice, How-To, and Misc.
They take good care of you.
And theyre all here.
If they want me, they know where to find me.
But if the neurotic, crying author wants his editor, he makes an appointment.
Those are good boundaries.There did come a time when I was really struggling with writing.
And he looks at me and laughs and says, Honey, youre great.
Its gonna be wonderful.
Dont think youre the first author whos tried to get out of a contract.
I would add to it things that otherwise really first-rate people were getting wrong.
So I kept working on the memo until it topped out at about 20 pages.
Who was your copy editor?Her name is Bonnie Thompson.
Shes attentive, listens to writers, is very careful.
She laughed at my jokes in the margins and never made me feel bad.
Tell me about Twitter grammar.
When can you let things go on Twitter that wouldnt pass muster in print?Twitterhas its own language.
I like to have a go at write into it.
Such as?The ALL CAPS alarmed or funny tweet.
Or every time I say Am I right.
Now I sort of support this as a copy editor.
It comes from the Twitter habit of writing questions and not putting a question mark at the end.
It makes me laugh, but theres a point to it.
But I will never skip a series comma.
The house style is to use series commas.
Everybody in book publishing uses a series comma and so many people in journalism dont.
How often do you use emoji?A lot.
On Twitter I use them all the time.
Here, every now and then.
Anything for a laugh.
I hired a freelance copy editor on that one.
That sparked some real joy.
Can you tell when specific people are being very particular in the way they interact with you?
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity, and to maintain impeccable grammar.
