The Word Nerd
As a college freshman I joined the pre-med club at the school I attended. About thirty aspiring physicians, dentists and veterinarians showed up for the first meeting and were greeted by the chair of the biology department. He stood in front of the group and said, “You all think you know what you want to be, but most of you will end up being something you never thought of.” I just knew I was going to be a vet or a doctor, something medical, and frankly I couldn’t wait for this guy to sit down so we could get to the important stuff. Now, twenty-some years later, I’m ready to admit that this professor was absolutely right. I never imagined being an editor, but here I am, editing and loving it.
Over the years, my list of possible careers included veterinarian, forest ranger, artist, neurologist, architect, landscape designer, archaeologist, web designer, botanist…and on and on. I was—and am—interested in too many things to pick just one. Insatiable curiosity is one reason editing is a good fit for me. Looking back, I can see two more signs that an editing career was in my future.
First, I was always reading. I mean always. Both of my parents were readers, so there was a good supply of books in the house, and I took advantage of it. “There she is with her nose in a book”—that’s what people said about me, and not in a “Wow, that kid’s really going places” sense. No, it was more like, “That child is so strange. Poor thing.”
Second, one day when I was in eighth grade, my class went on a field trip and for some reason I couldn’t go. Instead, I spent a good part of the day with my language arts teacher, the stern, no-nonsense Ms. Michaelson. Now, most kids would have hated being alone with Ms. Michaelson; her excellent sense of humor was normally hidden behind a strict and very proper façade that intimidated her students. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be there, and language arts was my favorite class, especially since she’d begun teaching us to diagram complex sentences. My doubts melted away though, when she invited me to diagram sentences on the board, by myself, for a whole class period. Oh, the joy! She and I both smiled a lot during that hour. The memory still gives me warm fuzzies and makes me want to diagram a few sentences, just for kicks.
At this point, you’re either nodding and smiling or you’re thinking, Poor thing. That’s okay, I’m used to it. More importantly, I can now say with confidence there is a place in the world for word nerds. Actually there are many places for us, and one of them is at a computer, working the kinks out of someone else’s writing, putting all those years of reading and diagramming to excellent use. Thank you, Ms. Michaelson.
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