Quick note on a Word problem in Mac

I had a document that displayed only the first 7 pages (~1000 words) in Print Layout view even when the Word Count display stated 4000+ words.

I could view all the text only in Draft view, but the tables could not be viewed.

Save As a new file in .htm/.html format didn't work.

Copying and pasting (Track Changes OFF) to a new document didn't work.

Fiddling with Hidden Text selections and Column Numbers also didn't work.

What DID work was Save As a new file in .docx format and checking the box to Maintain compatibility with previous versions of Word. (The original file had been saved as a Word 97-2004 Document.)

Huzzah!

Hope that helps!

Instructions

How to get that hotel room smell* in your own room (I know...):

1. Get a cup of coffee with a little milk in it
2. Set the air-conditioning at full blast.
3. Bring the coffee in and let it hang out for a while. You're allowed to sip.
4. Start work.
5. Be transported out of your current surroundings!
6. Realise it's not real and snap out of it, befuddled.
7. Realise what just happened. Carry on.

*Courtesy of suspect hygiene and cleaning practices, and questionable ventilation.

Dreaming

I don't think I've ever written about when I was in my last year of secondary school, i.e., Form 5, and had no idea what I'd do afterwards.

Everyone seemed to have a plan or knew what they'd study after Form 6. Most of it seemed to involve studying accounting in Australia and/or working there. In fact, virtually everyone (that I knew) with a plan involving Australia has settled there.

As for me. I was particularly taken with a manga I was reading at the time (Harlem Beat). One of the supporting female characters was a ne'er do well type, as far as you can be a ne'er do well in your last year of high school. She told those who asked that she would be a vagabond after she finished school. (Japanese university entrance exams being what they are, maybe that isn't too farfetched an idea...)

I thought that was a fine idea, and imagined myself living out of a van, travelling where the road would take me each day. I'd wash up at highway rest stops and cook over a camp stove. To make money, I would write! And no one would tell me what to do!

It was the perfect plan... only I sucked at driving in manual, and didn't have a van, a laptop, a camp stove, or a clue where I'd go.

For more irony, I haven't renewed my driving license.

Trying to compute

I've been holiday-sick since I got back from Kota Kinabalu. It's like being homesick, but you yearn for the holiday place instead of home. Of course, I got a little homesick when I was in Europe, so you can't really win that game.

I've also been thinking of getting another laptop. The idea came about when ET and I were discussing quite seriously the idea of being traveling freelancers. From what I've read, it seems to be mainly a white people thing at the moment.

(When I was in school, I imagined I would be a vagabond, living in a van and washing up at petrol stations and cooking over a camp stove. All my belongings would fit into a rucksack. I have a rucksack. I have a camp stove. I have a... sedan. The idea still intrigues me.)

All I really need to work is a computer, electricity, and an internet connection (doesn't almost everyone?), and it's possible for ET to conduct music lessons over Skype, though that isn't really a thing in Malaysia yet. Maybe we can make it a thing elsewhere.

The thing is, the working holiday I took in KK made me realize that my current laptop is uncomfortably heavy (almost 2 kg, maybe more because it's got so many files stored on it, har har) and too big to just shove into any old laptop sleeve. It also has a shit battery, so it's on DC power all the time.

I don't actually need another laptop, or so I thought, but my current one switched off on its own a few days ago. I lost an entire manuscript! And yet, right now, I wonder if it had overheated and whether an overhaul might refresh things somewhat. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, it's just old. (One day someone will say that of me too, I think.)

A new laptop would be nice though. It would be smaller, lighter, and more portable. It would run faster, until it doesn't. And then I'll get another one. And so on. We'll see.

Click-through rates

Following links tends to lead you down corridors of the internet you'd never have dreamed of. Like this website; I'd started out looking for a recipe for durian paste and discovered that there's an expat couple conducting durian tours here!

By the way, I'm neutral on durian. Anyone who tells you it's purely a love or hate thing is probably white full of it.

That's for "leisure" or "lifestyle" topics though. Looking up things related to freelancing will net you several variations on a theme: why you should freelance, who should freelance, when should you freelance, and whether you should freelance at all. A perennial (aren't they all?) topic is the pros and cons of freelancing. If you ask me, you might as well call it "the pros and cons of having a job".

I'm sure freelancers in every country have niche information, such as what tax entity you are (self-employed, not running a business, make deductions for office equipment and private retirement fund), whether your income is taxable (if your earnings exceed the stated threshold, yes), and what you can do when a client doesn't pay (depending on the amount, debt collectors might be a good idea).

As for me, I'm still working on an easily customizable template pitch. I'm quite sure there isn't such a thing though, but one can try.

PS If you don't already know, click through rates refer to the number of people that click the link(s) embedded in an article, which is usually written for marketing purposes. What do I get out of telling you this? NOTHING. Most marketing articles are crap though. I should know; I used to be a broker for them. Ugh.

Advice

Writing is enjoyable when you're not worried about the result. (Please don't use "end result" because that's redundant, and I hate redudancies.)

(I like writing sentences in parentheses too. It's something I picked up from my friend Neil. As in Gaiman. I don't know him of course, but I like to think that we could probably have a chat over a nice cup of tea. After I've finished vomiting from nervousness, naturally.)

Also, don't worry about commas. Conventional wisdom says you use them where you would pause while talking. But guess what: everyone talks differently so comma* a sentence the way you see fit and your copy editor (me) will sort it out. No, seriously.

I have to say though, browsing Tumb1r for an extended stretch is quite wearying. It's like people there are over-caffeinated and/or on sugar highs all day every day. Or at least whatever gets the most notes and reblogs.

*I like verbing nouns. Verbing in general.

In like a lion

My inbox has gone a bit quiet this week, which of course led to the typical freelancer worrying that work was drying up (the plants definitely are, in this weather). Rather than fret and check said inbox every 30 minutes, or surf even more, I tracked down some dusty online accounts and forgotten passwords, tidied up some blog accounts, reviewed my résumé, and turned to the time-honored and thoroughly terrifying practice of cold emailing.*

Do people even cold call anymore? I don't know, but contacting a complete stranger out of the blue, by whatever means, is never easy. More so when you're contact phobic** like me. It's not as if you're disrobing in public; you're just telling the (hopefully) nice stranger that you're [insert freelance occupation here] and that you were wondering if they were looking to add another person to their team.

However scared you feel, just do it (let that email sit overnight though, just to be certain), and the practice is always worthwhile. The wait for replies is actually worse, but you'll get through it and possibly gain a new contact! Ina worst case scenario: treat yourself to a nice bottle of red (or white, as I do; or chocolate. Whatever you like).

*I'm not sure about what it takes to have honed it into an art.
**I work long hours alone, so spoken English is almost a second language for me now D: 

Editing: USA vs. the rest of the world

The most common would-be freelancer question is "Where/How do I find a job?"

Typically, they would be pointed to freelancer marketplaces such as Elance, Freelancer.com, and the like, where you bid for gigs, or jobs. Complaints of undercutting by South Asian nationals abound, perpetuating the stereotype of the region as an international sweatshop both on- and offline.

However, I'm not here to grouse about that, or even gigs with paltry budgets (just say no and tighten your belt). Rather, I want to comment on how the beta versions of some freelancer sites limit registration to people living in the United States or Canada.

I'm not saying they're wrong in doing so. Certainly, it's their prerogative, and it might offer potential clients a semblance of security. I do think that in doing so, they limit their talent pool, and there is no guarantee that freelancers from these regions are necessarily better.

There's also nothing stopping a person with a legitimate US/Canadian address from successfully establishing an account with the site and subsequently farming the work out on other freelancing sites (!!) to people living outside North America.

Likewise, I don't think they have safeguards against a person who obtains a fake US/Canadian address and registers anyway. After all, there are mail forwarding services that cater to shoppers when an online shop in the US/wherever doesn't ship internationally, so why not freelancer sites?

Christmas OTW!

Today's work face mainly involved alternately peeking through my fingers at the manuscript on screen and groaning, "Aiyo!" before correcting another redundant section of writing.

(I once showed Enfant Terrible a manuscript I'd edited heavily. It was a good 5 minutes before he said anything.)

Elsewhere, I think my car battery has gone flat again. The last time that happened, my mechanic hooked me up with what he called a see-through battery, so I could top-up battery water as needed. I take it he's kind of a lot of tired of having to make house calls of this sort. But but but... How am I going to get battery water without a ride?

Safety in (relative) obscurity

Yesterday, I got to know a girl who used to be a lawyer, and her boyfriend, who is a pilot. Together, they've fielded more than their fair share of asinine questions only slightly related to their jobs. Did you know that there are many aspects of law? A lawyer who specializes in conveyance might not be able to give you the information you need for your divorce proceedings.

As for the pilot, social events have become a nightmare for him after MH370 went missing. I'm sure he wants to know what happened as much as everyone else does, but he's not an aviation forensics investigator, so asking him where he thinks the plane might be is an exercise in futility. Besides, it's probably the hundredth time he's heard it, so I wouldn't blame him if he made up an improbable story just for laughs.

As for me and Enfant Terrible, no one can fathom what a medical editor does, and there are virtually no scandals involving music teachers, so we get to smile and way as much cake as we can without anyone noticing.

Journal formatting tip: Nomenclature

Most of the time, scientific journals provide relatively clear instructions for formatting passages. While inconsistencies may exist between reference formatting guidelines and samples provided in their print articles, you can usually format the text with your eyes closed.

That is, until you encounter the British Journal of Haematology. Then, you are told "the main categories of headings are side capitals, side italics and shoulder italics".

Incredibly, the search engines (yes, all of them) yielded nothing but an unanswered forum query. 

To be fair, the guidelines suggest that authors refer to recent issues of the journal, but the indirectness makes it appear as if they're trying to get more people to actually read their articles.

That probably isn't true, but I think it can be improved. Typically, headings appear on a separate line from the main text. Thus:

This is a typical main heading
Text.

This is a typical subheading
Text.

Here is a section heading
Text.

This is a subsection heading
Text.

Sometimes, authors are instructed to place section headings in line with the text. THIS is what "shoulder italics/capitals" means! To wit:

This is a side capital heading*
Text.

This is a side italics heading
Text.

This is a shoulder italics heading. The text starts here.

Therefore, "side" and "shoulder" respectively refer to the "side" of the page and "shoulder" of the paragraph, i.e., in line with the text. Now it's easy, no?

* This might or might not be all caps/upper case, sentence/title case, or bolded; it depends on the journal.

No time like the present

All I can say is, everything becomes easier with time, including doing nothing. Especially doing nothing.

I felt snarky one day (back in December 2012, sometime after the last entry here). I wanted to write something pithy, truthful, and memorable. I came up with "blogging is for people who have free time; people who work have no free time".

However, given the wealth of blogs written by people who have so much more on their plate than I could ever dream of, this was obviously untrue and clearly at odds with "if you want something done, give it to a busy person to do". It was also mean, and like all mean things, said more about the person behind it more than anything else.

(Bitter, pithy, and memorable works though, right. Just not for me!)

Unhappiness makes people mean; jealousy makes people unhappy. That's easy to understand and remember, but less easy to apply to yourself.

Cause: Any freelancer knows that when it rains, it pours, and you better save something up for a rainy day because it's a feast or famine situation out there every day. Fortunately for me, the rain has been steady, so to speak.

Effect: Unfortunately, and I don't know if this is true for other freelancers, I began to feel that I should work all the time. Fear puts the F in "freelancing": What if Client A drops me? I could get by with Client B, but what if they dropped me too?

Lesson: Constantly accepting jobs leaves you (me) feeling that time spent doing other things online is frivolous simply because it doesn't pay. On the other hand, being paralyzed by the guilt of not working also does nothing for the bank account.

Conclusion: Writing for yourself may not pay cash, but that's okay because you're happy doing what you enjoy.

So now everything's cool.
 

Modern life

That moment in the middle of the work day when you're working on a desktop or laptop computer and want to check your FaceBook and/or Twitter, and reach for your phone instead (who could blame me?).

This is the phone I use. Image source: Unknown.

 

Perception vs. reality

It's unbelievably easy to slip down the "social networking" slope when you work in an environment unfettered by a corporate IT policy (to understate it) and have to do a lot of online "research". That, and a recent IT security scare*, made me resolve to go on a digital diet.**

Rather than trawling the FB or the Twitter during lunch hour or after work, I decided to access all work-unrelated miscellany using only a smartphone. The key to ensuring this idea worked was to: 

1) Own a smartphone.
2) Be subscribed to a data plan.

This approach works. For about 2 weeks (if you're me). It works because a mobile data plan is still light years away from broadband and home fibre network speeds, and you just feel really silly staring at a 4.5-inch screen waiting for a page to load, all the while knowing it contains absolutely nothing that will impact your life in a significant way. So, you go back to work, and work productivity doubles.

Unfortunately, a smartphone doesn't need booting up, unlike a laptop. Thus, after the aforementioned 14 days, you just get used to the loading times, transforming into the type of techno-nerd wanker featured in memes:

I'd be the girl in jeans on the left, but frownier. Image from Share Dis LOL (seriously??)

The boyfriend wonders where the girlfriend has gone; deadlines are just barely met (just kidding); plants are neglected. So, now I'm back to Square 1. New tactic: Put the phone in another room. I just need to put it down.

* Possible email spoofing incident.
** I don't think I can handle a detox.
 

Respite

Last year, Enfant Terrible and I planned a week-long getaway for next week. At the time, the motivation wasn't due to year-end work pressure; rather, the flight was cheap.

As I wind up work for this week, I can't help feeling that a break is an excellent idea, mainly because the following has been occurring with greater frequency lately:

#1
Mum (calling from the market): Eh, wanna buy rib-eye steak ah?
Me: Whatever for... up to you lah, it's not my money anyways, hehe.
Mum: Aiyah, I buy lah; you cook. Heheh.

#2
Bro2: Eh, you going holiday next week issit?
Me: Yeah.
Bro2: Wah, so nice ah holiday... EH, means next week no cooking ah??? WHAT WILL WE EAT?
Me: That is not my fucking problem!

#3
Corporate Client Handler*: Hi, could you edit this [few thousand word] PDF** document?
Me: Apologies, but I'm handling 2 private clients at the moment (ooh, look at you, gurl), so I won't be able to accept anything more this week.
CCH: BUT... There aren't any other editors who can do this T____T

* For want of a better term
** You use annotation software, and it's like working in PhotoShop or GIMP, but with words.

Sticky wickets: Borne of frustration

Writers for whom English is not a first language tend to be more particular about grammar than those from so-called native English-speaking countries (data not shown; statistical analysis pending). This is most apparent when it comes to the tenses used when referencing other authors' work.