Basic Behemoth Edits

My name is Kasey and I currently live in an oasis in dusty, windy Nevada. I grew up on Maui, attended university in Seattle, and disappeared into the Nevada desert for two years before the desire (nay, the need) to return to Washington took hold. I lived there for another fourteen years before returning to the desert to be closer to my mom after my father passed away from COVID-19 in November 2021.

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I spent many of my younger years with a pen and a notebook in my hands. I wanted to be a writer. My imagination ran wild with stories of far-off places, complex characters, and dreams of seeing my name on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Much to my parents’ chagrin, I opted to go to college for a writing degree. I thought having one would help me get ahead in the world I desired to be. Imagine my surprise when I learned—much later on, no less—that many authors don’t have college degrees (or do, but in other fields).

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That’s not to say the curriculum was useless. My fiction class taught me that I had a professor who got annoyed whenever I would get creative with his guidelines for a paper. My poetry classes taught me that I do not have what it takes to successfully venture down that road. My mythology literature class taught me Harry Hamlin really knew how to rock the toga in Clash of the Titans. The Arthurian Romance class made me want to disappear into the lush countryside of England, Scotland, and Wales for the rest of my life. And finally, my five weeks of senior synthesis class taught me that the university offered a single grammar and editing course that I was not going to get to take because graduation was in a few weeks.

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But that got the cogs turning.

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I’ve always excelled at grammar. English, and its constituents as a whole, I suppose. I began reading at a young age; my grades in reading, English, and spelling were always top of the class—though I failed to correctly spell the word palette (p-a-l-l-e-t was all I ever knew) at a bee and I fought that one tooth and nail because it wasn’t in the handbook that listed all the words they would assign the participants—and the older I got, the more cognizant I became regarding syntax, diction, and repetition. It’s frustrating (for my brain) to read a book for pleasure and get hung up on insignificant typos or poor grammar. Not everyone cares, but I do. It’s said a copyeditor (and publishing house) strives for 95% correct; I caught the other 5%, it seemed.

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After graduation, life puttered on in an aimless direction. I worked in construction offices, in a hotel, in a casino, for a merchandising company whose clients were Fortune 1000 members, and retail, to name a handful. I also ended up in the culinary world, which . . . of all the things I had been interested in—and capable of—throughout my life, I never envisioned myself there. I didn’t learn to cook until I was in my mid-twenties, and that was out of necessity. My partner, Daren, and I moved in together and we needed to eat. TV dinners and other frozen meals weren’t always going to cut it. I also grew up a picky eater and did not break that habit until college. So navigating my way through a kitchen (anyone’s kitchen), attempting to cook food I’d never tasted before, was a feat of its own. But cooking she did learn.

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I found my way into commercial kitchens through networking, building my own brand, and being pretty good at what I was doing—at least for a little area with not much to offer. Over the course of five years, I jumped around in the baking world, trying to pay the bills as I figured out where the hell my life was headed. For someone who wanted to be a writer and a copyeditor, the culinary world seemed like an odd choice. And it wasn’t until landing in retail once again that I realized my dream (and escape): copyediting in the food and/or travel world.

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Now I know this seems jumbled. For as long-winded as this already is, it’s very much the condensed version, skipping over the things that don’t matter (as much) about how I got into freelance copyediting and how it reflects who I am, what I do, and why someone should hire me to polish their work.

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During my time as a clerk in a little store, I worked my ass off to save as much money as I could. The goal (after much goading and support from Daren) was to attend the University of Chicago to participate in their copyediting program, quit retail, and return to the life of being my own boss, making my own schedule, and getting back to what makes me happy.

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I excelled in the UoC certification program. I loved what I was learning. What I already knew was reinforced, and what I didn’t opened my eyes to so much more. I met a great group of gals who gathered with me via Zoom every Friday to discuss homework, take practice quizzes, and catch up on everyone’s lives. At the end of the five classes, I was given my certificate and told to enter the world and prosper, armed with The Chicago Manual of Style to guide me . . . and protect me from intruders in a pinch.

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Since setting out on my own to hunt down jobs and build a portfolio, I have found success working as a beta reader, proofreader, revisions editor, developmental editor, and copyeditor with the likes of indie authors, small companies, and larger presses. I have received ample praise from those I’ve worked with, and while everyone enjoys hearing nice things said about them and their abilities, I have luxuriated in the knowledge that I’ve finally found my calling in the world of freelance copyediting. I can only hope to keep on this upward trajectory in the months and years to come. And that AI doesn’t completely squash my dreams.

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When I’ve not got my face buried in a manuscript (a client’s or my own), I enjoy cooking, baking, eating, fiber arts, reading, puzzles, board games, video games, traveling, kayaking, paddle boarding, gardening, and just generally being a goofy little nerd.