The beginning of March seems like a different world to the end of March. At the beginning of March I attended a lovely lunch with the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading’s West Surrey and North Hampshire local group. There were twelve attendees – nearly a record turnout. The next week, I met up with three of my favourite edibuddies. We went to Farnham and raided the bookshops and food establishments. (That’s not much of an exaggeration – I bought a lot of books.) If you like books and live at all near Farnham, the Oxfam books and music shop is the place to visit. The range is great and the prices are amazing.

Of course, no one will be doing that for a while. As I write this, the UK is in lockdown and has been for a while. I am fortunate that I am used to working from home, and I am well set up to do so, but it is a difficult time for us all.

What I’ve been working on

I had a relatively light month in terms of work. I took on two proofreads: one was historical fiction, set during the settlement of New France (an area colonised by France in what is now Canada), and the second was a memoir. My only copy-edit for March was fiction for an indie author I had had the pleasure of working with before.

What I’ve been reading

I had a copy of Dennis Baron’s What’s Your Pronoun? to review for the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading. The review will be available online in due course, but I can say that I do think it’s a worthwhile read.

My for-fun read this month was The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective by Susannah Stapleton. Maud West was a female private detective in the early twentieth century. I picked the book up when it caught my eye in the lovely Blue Bear Bookshop in Farnham. It’s a fascinating true story, engagingly told by Stapleton.

Looking forward

COVID-19 has put a stop to any in-person local group meetings for the foreseeable future. In a rare bit of good news, however, I am now more or less back to normal levels of availability for new projects.