Welcome Distractions

One of the things I like best about working at the WVU Press is the fact that I'm constantly exposed to the written word. I don't exactly get to fully read any of the books I work with, but it's still nice to be surrounded by literature. I got to help copy edit a book the other day called The Safety of Deeper Water. This is about a lady who enjoys fishing when she is not busy being a nurse. Her husband is in prison and keeps threatening her via letters that when he gets out he will come after her and harm or kill her in some way. She ends up divorcing him while he's still in prison, which just annoys him even more. She also falls in love with a very interesting character who tends to enjoy fishing naked, for whatever reason. Thats all of the plot I could figure out from just skimming the pages looking for orphans and widows. In case you don't know, an orphan is a word left by itself at the start of a line and a widow is part of a phrase left at the top of a page.
Anyway, this has made me realize that while copy editing can be tedious, especially when it involves just looking for simple words and phrases, I think I can really come to enjoy it if it involves working with interesting text. I've never exactly hated copy editing, but I haven't really enjoyed it either. I think this is a lesson in applying something I actually like to something I don't really enjoy doing all that much. As long as I've got at least something, be it as small as getting the gist of a good book, it makes life a little more bearable. I say this because working in an office wasn't exactly what I hoped for when I decided to get into writing and editing, but that is where the books come in. By being able to read or at least skim over a plot, I can take my mind off of being cooped up in an office and let it focus on not only the task at hand, but also the details that surround that task, such as a setting next to a river.