Carmen and I have been looking out of the window of my office at the gray and cold the last couple days, stuck in front of the computer, editing. (Well, Carmen's not technically editing, but she's good company.)

For those of you who don't know, I do the first-round technical edits for Beadwork magazine. What does that mean? Well, if you've had a project accepted to appear in the magazine, its life at Interweave starts with a photo shoot, then it comes to my house. I go over the file you've put together to make sure it makes sense grammatically, but my job is also to make sure that it sounds like every other project in the magazine. For example, since beadwork doesn't have a "language" like, say,  knitting,  your file was most likely written in a different dialect than your fellow contributor. So if you say "Pick up", I change it to "String". If you say "needle the bead" I change it to "pass through."

That's the language part of what I do. The other part is pretty technical. It's almost like putting together DNA charts or something. I usually give letter assignments to different bead types, so that means I go through your entire file, marking your "black size 15 seed bead" with an "A", your "white size 11 seed beads" with a "B", and so on. I then need to make sure that your instructions are correct. That the instructions read smoothly and correctly. It's important that how I order the words--and which words I use--will result in allowing the readers make what's shown in the photo. Because I have been doing this type of editing for over 15 years now, I can usually do this in my head and on paper. Sometimes I need to get out the beads and test, but not that often.

Finally, I sketch up rough drawings for each how-to diagram and take snapshots of your piece. I send these to Bonnie Brooks, our fabulous illustrator (who is also a wonderful beader, thank goodness!). We go back and forth, refining the drawings until they're just where we want them.

The whole shebang goes to editor Melinda Barta, who gives everything a second eye. If it's your piece, this is when you get to read it. And then the file goes to design where it all ends up looking like a real magazine article. The file is read at least 3 more times after all of this.

So yes, that's my day job. It's dry and technical, but I learn so much everyday. It's like having a bead class every time I pore through someone's project.