GRAMMARGEDDON! has been here for almost a month, so I think perhaps it’s time to have a little “state of the blog” post. (That, and I don’t have a really blog-worthy grammar/proofreading/signage/etc. subject for today. So. There you have it.)

Originally, Ray and I figured this would be pretty tongue-in-cheek. He came up with the name and I loved it, and off we went. We got the domain name (thanks to my husband for his quick-thinking techie brain!), downloaded the software, and poof. Bloggage. It didn’t take long before the tongue-in-cheek side took a back seat to the more serious (annoying? pedantic? educational?) side, probably because I took off with posts faster than my partner, Ray.

Maybe I have a larger axe to grind. I really don’t know. I do know that I really miss working in the publishing industry as a copy editor. I really, really miss it. Hence, my attempt to re-enter as a freelancer, to reforge some connections, and perhaps get a foot in a different publishing door. One never knows.

Anyway . . .

I think, firstly, we’re here to entertain. Not just ourselves, but our audience–you few who have already found us and left your comments, and (we hope) many more to come. To you who’ve been here and commented, thank you. Especially those of you who have said more than “Nice blog, liked it.” We’d love dialogues with you folks! Ask questions, disagree (respectfully, of course), and generally follow Wheaton’s Rule #1: Don’t be a d*ck.

Secondly, I think we’re here to educate. (I know I am. I was an educator before I was a copy editor, and I’ve never really stopped doing either one no matter what I did as a day job.) If we can do that humorously, so much the better. I’m not out to pound things into people’s heads. I’d rather say “Hey, this thing over here is wrong, and here’s why,” and explain how to make it better. As a corollary to that, I don’t think we’re here to nitpick, either. I’m not about to make a post about the single error I found in Author A’s book. We make mistakes. Of course we do. Even if we use software to assist in our work, errors can still slip past. As yesterday’s post discussed, it’s a matter of degree. One or two errors, no big deal. The same error repeated throughout a book? Kind of a big deal. That error, and a few others as well? Definitely a big deal–at least to a copy editor.

Thirdly, and I do think I can speak for Ray as well on this one, we’re here to create a presence for ourselves that could help lead to more work. We’re both professionals; we worked together for a number of years at what I will readily call the best job I’ve ever had. We know one another’s work and respect it (and each other). Reaching out by linking to other writing/editing/publishing blogs seems to be a sensible method of working toward that presence. Perhaps some of them will choose to reciprocate. That would be great. I would love to find that happening, as it would signal to me that we’re on the right track here.

So . . . right. We’ve worked out something of a schedule, with me taking the day shift and Ray the evenings, and we each shoot for one post a day. So far, so good.

Comments are, as always, encouraged and welcome. Thanks to everyone who’s been here already. Tell your friends. We’re open 24/7. Clean up after yourselves. I’m not your mother.