Julia Gibbs has been my proofreader for almost three years now and is a valuable member of my publication team. I always do my own proof reading before I send her a manuscript, but as every author knows, it’s impossible to assess one’s own work. It’s too familiar. You know what you want to say, but what you’ve written can sometimes be construed in a different, or perhaps even farcical light. I rely on Julia to dig me out of these holes and she does a wonderful job. She sorts out my punctuation too so when I upload my manuscript to my publisher, Sarah Houldcroft at Goldcrest Books, I’m confident it’s been professionally proofread.
Follow Julia at – Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/ProofreadJulia
Blogs – https://juliaproofreader.wordpress.com
Julia Gibbs, thank you very much for agreeing to be my fifth “In Conversation” guest interviewee. Welcome to Lorna’s Command Centre.
My first question is to ask whether you read a lot as a child?
Reading was what I lived for as a child. If I could have read while I walked to school, I would have done so. I thought it was the most magical thing in the world.
What is your favourite childhood book? Do you still have a copy?
Different ones at different times, but definitely all the Narnia books, and also Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. And Little Women, which is the only one that I still have a copy of.
What are you reading now?
I have a TBR pile that is increasingly high, because one thing I didn’t anticipate as a proofreader was that I wouldn’t have so much time to read for pleasure. But on my bedside table as I type are the following: The Girls – Sappho Goes to Hollywood by Diana McLellan The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield The New York Stories of Edith Wharton Letter from New York by Helene Hanff The Sky is Falling by Sidney Sheldon And that’s just the bedroom, you should see the ones in the living room.
I’m assuming that you were, and probably still are, an avid reader. Do you have a favourite author?
Not possible to have a favourite author when you’ve lived as long as I have! I could make you a list, how long have you got?!
Did you always know you wanted to be a proofreader? Did you write/tell stories/put on plays as a child? I used to mark books in red ink and give each page marks out of ten – maybe I’ve missed my vocation as a proofreader.
No, never occurred to me. Proofreading as my job has come to me late in life. However, I was brought up in a household full of books, where we were read to every night as small children. My mother was a teacher (not at my school) and loved language, in fact she taught French, and learned Italian in her 70s. We were very keen on correct grammar, and used to gleefully look for mistakes in public notices (how insufferable!) I’ve never had any desire to write, tell stories, or put on plays. I just wanted to be left alone with my books – so I have got my wish. (And, Lorna – what you did as a child showed you wanted to be a writer!)
I’ve had various different jobs (e.g. croupier/restaurant manager/MD’s secretary in the television industry/music management), and noticed over the decades that wherever I worked, I was always the person that others came to when they wanted clarification on punctuation, spelling, meaning of words etc. In the last office where I worked, the boss eventually said that no document should leave the premises until I’d given it the OK, which was very flattering. Then came self-publishing, and my sister (prolific author @TerryTyler4 on Twitter – yes, you know you still call it Twitter) said that she’d seen posts from self-published authors saying they’d used a proofreader. So the idea germinated there.
I’ve just read “Tipping Point”, my third Terry Tyler book. It’s the same every time – I’m hooked immediately. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tipping-Point-Project-Renova-Book-ebook/dp/B074LSCX5M
Do you find time to proofread every day or do you approach it in bursts?
I have a schedule with a certain number of slots allotted for each month (I’m usually booked up around 7-8 weeks in advance), with the dates on it by which the writers need their work returned to them. So I work according to my deadlines.
Do you have any specific working ritual(s) you would like to share with us?
I’m a morning person so it makes sense to get the brain work done in the morning and save the admin for after lunch.
Do you have any specific working ritual(s) you would like to share with us?
I’m a creature of habit, and I like to have a self-imposed structure to my day, with a mental to-do list, which is important when you work for yourself. Oh, and I take a proper lunch hour so that I can watch either a true crime documentary, or an episode of Law & Order.
We’re currently hooked on the NYPD police series Blue Bloods. What is the first thing you do when you receive an MS?
Ask the person whether they write in UK or US English, because that makes a whole world of difference. Then I run the MS through some basic checks that apply to all writers, e.g. how many spaces do they want after a full stop/have they made basic typos such as ‘though’ when they mean ‘through’/have they got the acute accent on the word ‘café – you know the sort of thing, the list goes on and on.
What is your favourite part of the proofreading process?
Starting a new book.
What is the most challenging aspect of proofreading for you?
Nothing really, because it’s what I want to be doing at this stage of my life.
Is it difficult to work with a book you don’t like or that you disagree with the contents?
Not in the least, actually. It’s all words to me. Whether I like the book or not is immaterial to me doing my job. Conversely, I’ve occasionally started work on a book which is in a genre that doesn’t particularly interest me, but the writing is so good that I love the book. That’s happened a few times.
You read English Language and Literature at Durham, what was your first job after you graduated? Mine was in a bookbinding factory in Bodmin and I hated it.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and so I applied for the Civil Service. I lasted 5 months.
What genre do you/would you write in?
It’s never occurred to me, because I have no desire to write anything other than shopping lists, greetings cards, or the very occasional blog post.
https://juliaproofreader.wordpress.com/
If you could interview any author living or dead who would that be and why?
I can’t imagine what I’d ask any writer, but I did once write to Elizabeth Jane Howard, and she wrote back to me! I was so thrilled. I don’t really have a desire to interview authors because the writing process is not something that interests me, I regard it as their own special brand of magic. But I do want to tell them how much I love their work. So, P. G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Somerset Maugham, Elizabeth Taylor, Andrea Newman, Nancy Mitford, Damon Runyon, Bill Bryson, Madeleine Wickham, P. J. O’Rourke – I could go on and on and on, and you can take that as my answer to (some of) my favourite authors.
Do you prefer to read in print or digital?
Definitely print! When I’m working, I use a Word document and edit it using Track Changes. I own a Kindle but have hardly ever used it.
Do you listen to audible books? I never iron or travel without an audible on the go!
I would like to, but when travelling I prefer to read a book, and I don’t have enough ironing to listen to much, unfortunately. Never seems to be the right time. So no.
When you read for pleasure would I be correct in assuming that you can’t help mentally editing at the same time?
Yes, and I find it very annoying because I want to switch off.
What advice would you give to someone who wanted to become a proofreader?
Ha, I occasionally get asked this, in fact often enough that I have prepared my answers and recently converted them into a blog post: https://juliaproofreader.wordpress.com/2024/02/09/how-do-i-become-a-proofreader-a-question-i-am-sometimes-asked/
Do you think writers can improve their craft outside of writing by following other activities? For example, by travelling?
In short, not to a significant extent. Look at this this way; Jane Austen famously wrote on her ‘2 inches of ivory’, with all of her characters living in the small society that she was familiar with. Stephen King’s books are mostly set in rural Maine. I subscribe to Fran Lebowitz’s view of good writing, i.e. ‘The only thing you need to be a good writer is talent. The only thing you can teach a writer is grammar’. I know she said this because I was sitting in the front row of her speaking event, and wrote it down as she said it! I believe that we can all learn something, no matter how small, from everything. Travel to other countries/take advice from other writers/attend creative writing courses if you wish, but I firmly believe that a person can either write, or they can’t. In the same way as I can learn the piano, and practise, but if I haven’t got talent I’m never going to be great.
I am certain it is impossible to proofread one’s own work. Would you agree?
It’s practically impossible, yes. That’s for the very simple reason that when you read your own work, you see what you expect to see. For example, I remember proofreading a book that I knew for a fact was the 7th or 8th draft that the author had done, because she reads her books until she’s sick of the sight of them – I noticed an obviously missing word in the very first line. QED
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your life as a proofreader?
Just that I’ve met some lovely people – when I started, my clients were people on the other end of an email, at best a tiny profile picture on social media. Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to meet quite a few of them in person, either at book signings, writers’ groups, the London Book Fair, and sometimes for drinks or dinner. A couple of my clients have actually become friends, though we don’t live anywhere near each other. I consider myself very fortunate, and am aware of that on a daily basis, in what I think of as the Indian summer of my life!
Thenk you very much Julia for sharing these thoughts. BTW, I enjoy seeing your #Caturday posts on Twitter featuring the gorgeous Mollee.
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From Lorna's Command Centre 