Domineditrix

The doctorate is called the terminal degree. I hold a Ph.D., so that makes me terminally educated. Right? It’s my degree in English that gives me the knowledge and skills to be a good editor for inexperienced authors. And it’s my punnish—drat, my spell checker keeps trying to change “punnish” to “punish”—sense of humor that endears me to my friends and authors. At least that’s what they tell me, and since they say it with a straight face, I gotta believe them. Right? About that “punnish.” It’s a pun, of course. Some people think puns are punishing, but you and I know that wordplay and punning are the highest and (not “roasting” people)  kindest form of humor. You’ve got to be smart enough to “get” the pun or play or words.

My book, Finding New Goddesses, is filled with wordplay, puns, parodies, and nonsense. One of the Found goddesses in the book is Domineditrix, “the writer’s in-F-able friend.” Here’s what I had in mind when I “found” her, that is, when I made her up. Let’s deconstruct her name. It’s obviously a pun on dominatrix, with some editing thrown in. (No, I do not wear leather and, no, I do not punish my authors.) If a female aviator is an aviatrix, than a female editor is an editrix. And “in-F-able” is both a pun on “ineffable,” “incapable of being expressed in words,” says my dictionary, but I use words anyway because I Am A Writer. It’s also my way of keeping it clean but suggesting the dreaded F-word. In getting my seven published books out into the world, I’ve worked with some excellent editors. I’m especially grateful for the work of Georgia Hughes at New World Library. She made my writing better, which people who worked for a couple other publishers of my books did not do. I also keep telling the authors whose books I edit that I’m working for them, not against them. So a skillful editor is a writer’s best friend.

Domineditrix also brings me to another topic. Although I am terminally educated, I have learned that I am still educable. I can be taught. After all, Alexis Masters, my wonderful web designer, taught me how to use the content management system of this web site. She even said I learned faster than some of her other clients have. Good for me!

Well, now I am having learning adventures with Womens Radio. Pat Lynch, founder of Womens Radio has been interviewing me on pagan topics like the sabbats for the past three or four years. (We’ve lost track.) She’s also been asking me to become a contributing editor, and that’s what I’m working up to this week. I’m doing this because Womens Radio is active on social media sites and because it’s a place to post stories and blogs where more people will read them. Kat Barrett of Womens Radio has already taught me to post blogs, and a few days ago she led me through the sign-up process to becoming a contributing editor. Now we’re about up to the training to actually post my articles on the site.

I’m st arting with Domineditrix. From the Found goddess, I’ll go on to a series of revisionist fairy tales I wrote several years ago and have recently rewritten. Why “revisionist”? You’ll find out when you read them on the Womens Radio site next month. When I started talking to Kat, I told my friend Elizabeth Hazel about what I was doing. She’s is a terrific artist and a writer, so I asked her to draw Domineditrix for me. Here she is. Be sure to visit Liz’s web site and look at other examples of her work. Send her an email and ask her about her one-of-a-kind “wall jewelry.” You might even want to buy one. I think they're gorgeous.

Pause. Four days later. First Pat interviewed me, then two days ago, Kat trained me using a gotomeeting thingie and a long phone conversation. She taught me how to post Domineditrix, how to edit the piece and get all the indents right, and how to add the copyright notices. She led me through all the steps. That took an hour. Then we spent another hour on the phone. Talking about paintings she’s done. She showed me the photos of them hanging on her wall at home—gorgeous! Clothes. I’m a recovering shopper, she’s still hard at it. Shakespeare’s plays. Turns out, we both love Shakespeare. I reeled off a list of DVDs she needs to have. I sent her the list the next day—those she can rent from Netflix, others she simply must buy. My guess is that when I post my first revisionist fairy tale, I’ll be asking for help. Yes, I have a really good education—in gooder English and in Shakespeare—but my knowledge of technology really is kinda terminal. That’s why it’s good to have smart friends.

Breaking news. The morning the Womens Radio link went live, I sent an email to a bunch of my friends. Later that day, I received an email from Elysia Gallo, an acquisitions editor at Llewellyn whom I met and had a long conversation with at PantheaCon a few years ago. We've been friends ever since. Elysia had found a typo. In her email, the offending word was struck out. "Domineditrix made me do it," she wrote. She added that she was going to share the ritual with everyone in the office.

Holy Sechat! Holding my breath, I rushed across my living room, pulled Finding New Goddesses off the shelf and looked at page 91. No typo. Do you know what spontaneous generation is? That's where typos often come from when they're not finger errors or Word hasn't created them. My guess is that the typo Elysia found was generated by all the copying and pasting. I dunno. I sent a note to Kat, and she fixed it. She also said the article had had over a hundred hits already. That's lots more than the number of people I posted my note to.

Brava, Elysia! Many thanks for your fresh eyes! It's still good to have smart friends.