More of What to Do When You’re Waiting for Work

“Hands of Time” by Carol Harrison

Two years ago I posted about what to do when you’re waiting for work. Little has changed, but I have come up with a few more tasks that don’t require brushing the bog.

• Join a professional association: One of my resolutions/goals was to do more professional development in 2017. To that end, I volunteer as the editor-in-chief of BoldFace, the blog for the Toronto chapter of Editors Canada. It keeps me busy, helps me network, and boosts my resume, which is tricky to do when you’re self-employed.
• Read work-related books: Taking a cue from a colleague, I decided to start reading my newly acquired Garner’s Modern English Usage, which is 1,056 pages. My goal is to read 10 pages a day. I haven’t kept that pace, but I am making meagre progress. Better than none at all.
• Walk outside every day: Another resolution that I’ve been pretty good at keeping. Even it’s just to the grocery store, which is about 15 minutes away, I kit up for the weather and pull on my reflective vest. It helps my knees, my brain, and my mood. Strava is a useful app for tracking time and distance. Plus, if you share it on Facebook, you get your friends’ encouragement. Everything helps.
• Take a class: This doesn’t have to cost you a lot of money, if any at all. In fact, the Toronto Public Library offers Lynda.com webinars free for cardholders. You do have a library card, don’t you?
• Get a library card: The TPL is a fantastic resource! Spend some time on their website. With my card I can sign out books, download ebooks and periodicals, stream movies from Criterion and Hoopla, access Lynda.com webinars, read archived material at the reference library, learn about and use digital printers. What are you waiting for?

Introduction

BoldFace

Carol Harrison, photo by Jerome Daly

All it takes is one email. That’s it. Just one ping, one click and your schedule is changed. Changed, of course, only if you say yes.

Which is what I did. And so, I am Editors Toronto’s new publications chair and, more importantly for this blog, the Editor-in-Chief of BoldFace. I, for one, am pretty excited!

So who the heck am I, you ask? To quote (and punctuate) my Twitter bio, I’m a Toronto-based freelance editor, feminist nerd, hobbyist photographer, music geek, former bookseller, wannabe writer, and work in progress. I’m also a traveller who recently rediscovered the joy of camping, and blogged about it.

My plan for BoldFace is simply to grow a good thing, to bring you articles about editing in its myriad forms, and to review books and other media that are relevant to what we do for…

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