A willful writer named Pam,
Loved jiggin' the head-hoppin' jam,
Omniscient third person
Her constant assertion,
And Oxford Comma be damn.
But creative writing aside,
By edits she had to abide.
With delusions appended
And POV mended,
Surrender proved sweeter than pride.
Taking the best of what an author writes and shining it up
pretty is what a professional editor does. A truly tough and more often than
not, thankless job. Correcting the myriad of uncouth mistakes, mechanical
debacles, grammatical taboos and misspelled words (that slipped the noose of
spell-check) in order to spit and polish a manuscript. Wow! Add to that
daunting task, the finesse it takes to correct without changing the style and
voice of a writer, the essence of a story, the heart of characterization and
you have the makings of the truly heroic. The unsung masters we writers fear
and yet can not, should not, live
without.
How do they do it? Keep their cool, their sanity and their
right brain reigned in? Because those of us with dominant right brains know how
hard our left brain rides us with the rake of spurs we habitually
ignore.
My critique partners can tell you how bad I am at taking
advice. I snivel, hem-haw, mewl, listen generally, argue incessantly, accept
advice grudgingly. Still, I value the "editing" process right
alongside the creative one. As a perfectionist and OCD, I must rewrite, edit
and rewrite a manuscript half a hundred times. And that's before I let anyone
else see it. And believe me, I don't
keep my cool, my sanity or my right brain reigned in!
So, God bless editors, one and all. And a million thanks. Feeling accomplished as
a writer did not feel real when I got Smitten Image accepted by a publisher. Not until a
professional editor placed her mark on my work did I truly realize I'd
arrived. At last.
(Drawing by John R. O'Neil)
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