Freelance Developmental Editing Certificate and Oppenheimer
Tell Your Story, Your Way, With a Little Help
Hello my friends!
Recently I completed a course of study in developmental editing, earning a certificate from Club Ed Freelancers.
Unlike Oedipus, I recognized my own hubris quite early in the process and learned to practice humility. After more than 25 years in the college classroom teaching English, I thought “Oh, I can edit manuscripts.” Well, it wasn’t as straightforward a line between teaching and editing as I had thought. Commenting is different. Interacting with clients/students is different. The business angle is quite different. When I edit a manuscript, I use some of my expertise as a writing instructor. But grading student papers can drain me (especially as an overwhelmed adjunct). Editing manuscripts, for me, is far more creative and engaging. It’s less a quest for rooting out errors as it is finding ways to improve upon writing strengths. With students, sometimes we’re working with such fundamental written expression that we don’t get to the whole point of telling a story.
I’m proud of my editing pivot so far. The coursework at Club Ed is challenging and quite involved. I feel prepared to edit well and continue learning. So far, with feedback I’ve received from writers I’ve worked with, they are happy with the work I’ve done and that we’ve done together. I feel like I’m in the right place and on the right track.
If you’re in the market for a developmental editor, take a look at my website: The Writing Prof Editorial Services, a full service editing boutique. I can offer a FREE 30-60 minute Zoom or phone consultation to discuss your writing project.
Tell Your Story, Your Way, With a Little Help.
“Oppenheimer” - A Note
There are slight **SPOILERS** for the movie Oppenheimer to follow.
Once I had a job leading a team that produced a syndicated Sunday comics feature (https://www.4kids.org) that appeared internationally in about 140 newspapers. Each week, I’d work with the editor on the words while we also laid out graphics for printing. We worked six weeks ahead of the print date.
My editor also edited Roger Ebert, the famous movie critic, right before speaking with me. I’d always ask about the movies he reviewed that week and what grades he gave them, a little insider’s tip as to what movie to put on my radar to go see. That felt like the bigtime to me, rubbing elbows with the stars. I grew up in Los Angeles, and there are few things more enjoyable to me than movies. I have deep knowledge about movies, and at one time I thought I could merge my interests in writing and movies to become a movie reviewer. Where were you “Movie Pass” and theater discount programs back when I was a poor, hungry grad student?
My partner and I saw Barbie (which we loved!) after opening weekend. But we dragged our feet to see Oppenheimer because of the 3-hour runtime. We finally saw it last week.
My partner’s reaction pleased me. She’s not a fan of long epics like I am (come and get me, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Gone With the Wind, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and the like). But she said, “now that was a good a movie,” comparing it to Barbie. The weightiness of the subject matter in Oppenheimer does bring some gravitas to it that Barbie perhaps doesn’t deal with.
As we drove home and had our post-movie chat, it struck me what I like about Oppenheimer. It’s a biopic, of course, but it feels bigger than that by design. I had stayed away from movie reviews and media so I wouldn’t create a bias before seeing the movie. I’m a big Christopher Nolan fan (before that, it’s Kubrick for me). But I was highly disappointed by Tenet (though I’ve also just read a new review that said it’s worth another look and said if you’re patient and watch several times, it’ll click for you.
The only thing I had read about Oppenheimer that intrigued me before seeing it was that someone claimed it was really about the rivalry between Lewis Strauss and Oppenheimer, and less about the science itself. That’s all I had going in, except for cultural knowledge of the development of the atom bomb, Trinity and the Manhattan Project. I lived in Albuquerque for 5 years and my first officemate for teaching was from Los Alamos, so there’s that too.
As a movie buff, my lineage of favorite movies runs thus: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975, director, Milos Forman), Amadeus (1984, director Milos Forman), and American Beauty (1998, director. Sam Mendes ). Throw in Network and Chinatown among my top 5 and exclude Pixar movies (Up! ftw!), and you have a start of understanding the kinds of movies I like.
What struck me the most about Oppenheimer was how similar the rivalry between Oppenheimer and Strauss was like that fictionalized rivalry between Salieri and Mozart in Amadeus. Robert Downey, Jr. gave an amazing performance, down to changing his voice, for the role of Strauss, the petty, political bureaucrat who helped to strip Oppenheimer of his security clearance. Their rivalry — smiles to each other’s faces while holding knives behind their backs — informs every shot in the film.
When I got home, I started reading the reviews and found an article (here, though I’ve since found many articles with similar content) that described exactly what I had told my partner about the rivalry. Validation. It may finally be time for me to write movie reviews.
Movies gain richness through their intertextuality with other movies. And I must believe that a brilliant moviemaker such as Nolan would know exactly what he was doing and be aware of mirroring the Salieri/Mozart rivalry in the the Straus/Oppenheimer story line.
Oppenheimer is a great movie. If you haven’t seen it, go see it on a big screen. Amadeus has a special place in my heart, though I think David Lynch’s The Elephant Man is also one of the best biopics I’ve ever seen. Not many filmmakers can provide a movie with the scope of Lawrence of Arabia with the intimate closeness of a rivalry in a courtroom drama in the same film. Oppenheimer also has a bit of the feeling of A Beautiful Mind, brilliant scientist upended by a madness of the times (McCarthyism), a kind of cultural mental illness, rather than personal mental illness.
Barbie and Oppenheimer have definitely reinvigorated the movie-going experience. It’s too bad it comes in the midst of an epic labor battle in Hollywood. I will always support artists, actors, writers, and creative types rather than overpaid management.
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Until next time, I’ll . . .
Just keep writing!