The French language has a wonderful word for the time of year when school starts, extracurricular activities ramp up, and many of us find excuses to visit our favourite stationery shop: la rentrée.
Re-entering, not returning, not back to. The potential of the future. The potential to change and to have changed. The potential to develop and to learn new things. To approach things, both professional and personal, in a different way. To see the future in a different way.
For many of us, September and October feel more like the start of a new year than does January. Some of us even prefer to start our planners in the fall, to review our professional lives (personal, too, but let’s just stick with the professional here), and plan for going forward. It’s not just returning to our work and businesses, but re-entering our professional lives, hopefully rejuvenated from some time off and with plans for and ideas about our work, our tools of our trade, our learning (our continuing professional development), and our communities. In effect, expanding our professional horizons. Not just looking at the same old horizons.
Some folks like to do a business micro retreat at this time of year and assess their way forward. Maybe some people will decide to add editing fiction to their services and will want to read lots of craft books and take at least one course. Others may decide to drop developmental editing from their services. Some of us will be looking at ramping up our hours, now that we’re free from some other commitments (e.g., caring commitments), others will be looking at cutting down on their hours, either with retirement on the horizon or moving into teaching or training, or even just because. Others may be making the jump from freelance editing to in-house editing.
Some people may even plan to get a four-footed editorial assistant to keep them company and, if that assistant is a puppy, to get them out of the house, and in that case, take it from me, uninterrupted work for a few months is unlikely.
The re-entering mentality enables us to think big, to think laterally, not just think of going back to the same old work and same old routines and same old ways of thinking.
How’s your version of la rentrée going a few weeks in, when the temperatures are dropping and the leaves are turning lovely colours in the northern hemisphere, and the temperatures are rising and the outdoors are starting to turn green in the southern hemisphere?
My Editing Globally colleagues and I expanded and relaunched our international editorial collective, thereby increasing our reach, our expertise, our experience, and the knowledge that comes from being a team. And increasing the fun while we are at it.
This blog post is based on a post previously published on the Editors Canada website on September 18, 2025.