In recent years, I’ve had folks who openly express how much they hate their editors. Like, a lot. I get it.
The role of an editor will always be a work in progress for me. I was someone who wrote more often than lived in Track Changes in their career — the seat isn’t comfortable, and asking for another draft is a bit like Oliver Twist braving to ask for more gruel. It can be thankless, but no one said it was easy. Nobody. Not. One. Person.
Luckily, thank-yous don’t pay the bills, and you know reward doesn’t have to come with your name on it #Growth. Still, it’s easy to lose faith in your role when folks are uncertain of its purpose. But you can’t live in other’s uncertainty, so I find assurance in these four things:
1) You are the audience. You are the publication.
Assume nothing. Protect everything.
A writer can make all kinds of assumptions about the audience, but the editor is here to see that you don’t. We want to make sure anything put into the world is done with care to protect the writer, their words, and the places those words appear.
2) You are the coach. You are the counselor.
These two things are not the same but have to coexist.
Development is one thing, but the counseling portion of editing had never been as real as it has during the COVID-19 pandemic. Listening with the intent to authentically encourage is necessary.
3) You are smart. The writer is smart.
But none of you are as smart as you are together.
Writing is collaborative. Editors are here to help deliver the vision. We both have something to offer in the process.
4) You are an editor. You are a writer.
Your job is to refine the work, but you must know how to do the work.
Writing informs your editing. Don’t forget the labor and the joy of storytelling.
If these hymns don’t bring you the affirmation you need, yell at a №2 pencil. And maybe in the time it takes you to find that specific writing tool and beam at its little eraser head, you will have laughed enough to protect your spirit from an empty ladle.
Republished with permission
