Erica Peck | Editor, Writer, Reader

a close up of a woman 's face with a slight smile on her face . Alt: A close up of a blonde woman’s confused face with math equations appearing at left.

What in tarnation

Thanks for taking one for the team. This all sounds dreadful. 🙃

Aw man, now I’m going to have to actually finish and publish one of my WIPs so you can read it 😂
Fair warning, it’ll be a different animal from Nylah

Glad you’re enjoying the collection! And thanks for the follow! 😀

That’s valid. Reading preferences are entirely subjective. 🙂

teewatterss on Threads: “losing an hour on international women's day feeling very 75 cents on the dollar”

10/10 take. no notes

Fair! I don’t share that sensitivity, but it took me awhile to get immersed in the few 3rd present romances I’ve read; my brain took a couple chapters to recalibrate. And then it just felt like watching a movie and I could get into it.

I get yelled at for saying this but for many hundreds of years people went to university not to get diplomas or be employable but because immersion in the humanities was considered foundational to a good life, and school must return to its original purpose: the joy of learning.

I can’t read this because I’m not a subscriber, but this topic is fascinating to me. What if any are your thoughts on third person present? I thought it was super rare, but three of my editing projects in the last year have used it.

AI summaries are theft. Click links. Support actual people who put in the actual work

I’m so bummed. My choir’s Ralph Vaughan Williams concert is this weekend. We’ve been practicing for 9 weeks. The music is transcendently beautiful and the Dona Nobis Pacem is eerily timely. And this morning I WOKE UP WITH NO VOICE. 😩😭😷

a woman says let 's face it i 'm tired while sitting in front of a bed Alt: Madeline Khan says let's face it I'm tired while sitting in front of a bed

Blazing Saddles

Three times this week. It’s exhausting.

Pet peeve of the week: people who respond to my heartfelt hatred of AI by trying to convince me that the way THEY use it is okay. Like what do you want? Permission? I’m not your mom. (Because MY kids would never.)

I have no idea why this posted twice btw

Q: What’s the hardest part of building a model of a snake?

A: building it to scale 🐍 😀

Q: What’s the hardest part of building a model of a snake?

A: building it to scale 🐍 😀

I would love some more turgid tentacles to edit, tbh. Bring ‘em on. I want to edit books that would be banned in Florida.

I don’t think any of my clients to date have actually used it, but I’d consider it on a case by case basis. It would have to be an extremely niche voice.

Eh, if it’s right for the voice (but two is too many)

Author: I can't let anyone edit my spicy book, it's so embarrassing! 🫣
Editor (utterly unaroused): Let's see...moist channel, turgid member, that all seems to be in order...oops, you used "turgid" twice. 🧐 Also, he seems to have an extra hand...Oh, it's a tentacle? Perfect, carry on. #amediting

The mind boggles

Driving the other day and had to turn around and suddenly found myself imagining two dudes on a horse cart driving down an ancient Roman road, and one says to the other, “Hey Clavdivs, you passed the taberna. Take a V-turn.” Why does my brain do this.

Pet peeve of the day: phrasing like “three times less than” or “ten times lower than.” Life is hard enough without having to turn my brain inside out for your comparison math, you psycho. Use fractions like a normal person.

Welcome to The Great Pedophile War of 2026, bitches.

Any copy editor worth their hourly rate would’ve stopped them from using a word that begins with Ep-.

Chef’s kiss 🤌

In my utopian vision of the future, instead of offloading all the pointless, annoying work tasks (like reports that none one will read and needlessly opaque forms) to robots, we restructure work and society so that the pointless tasks don't happen at all.

Don’t sleep on the Adventurefuls. They are surprisingly good.

A simple line drawing of a two panel comic strip. In the top panel the stick man puts a single round cake on a table next to a much more elaborately decorated two layer cake. He says “Aw man that guy’s cake is way better than mine.” The panel below it shows the same cakes with a different stick man who is holding a fork in one hand and a butter knife in the other. They say “Holy shit!” Two cakes!” With a very happy look on their face.

Welcome to my corner of the sky!

I write, I craft, I work on my small farm, occasionally I play DND and video games, but most of the time I forget what I’m doing and have to reload to the the last quick save to remember.

If you need me I’m off to do…something. I can’t remember what it was though.