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April 22, 2003
Editing
I no longer think that I am a lousy writer. I know that I am a much better at pulling words apart and looking at them than I am at setting them down in the first place, but I now believe that I can actually set them down. I do try and keep sharp by writing; ultimately that is what the blog is for...
What I can do, and well, is edit. My spelling sucks and my grasp on grammar is tenuous at best. Fortunately I live in a civilized time and the semi-good folks at Microsoft included a spell checker with my copy of office XP. Like I said, though, I can edit...
That works out well enough; I am used in that capacity on my school's newspaper. We have a team of 6 editors, and the writers keep coming to me for help in making them better at what they do. Some of what I teach them are my personal peeves (don't use second person, ever), some is just good sense, but mostly I try to tease clarity from incomprehension. Mostly I succeed...
What bad writers don't understand is that my job, as an editor, is not to pat a writer's back or check her spelling (I just went over that; Microsoft has that job), my job is to ensure that a reader has the easiest time possible understanding what the hell a writer is trying to say. All other considerations are really secondary...
So, yesterday I spent about an hour fine tuning a writers work. For that hour, I worked with her, figuring out how to make what she wrote mean what she wanted it to mean. She was a real trooper, letting me delete entire words and thoughts that were jabbed into place as if by a mad puzzle builder. In the end she was near tears...
"I wanted to write something good" she said to me, her eyes watering. I was taken aback. She had written something good. Apparently I failed to explain this to her...
I stifled a sigh, manfully holding it inside while I told her that no one ever gets it perfect the first time. Hell! Had she not given me something worthwhile, I would not have spent the time working on it. Eventually I think I got through to her. That's when the class started and my work began...
Posted by Andrew at April 22, 2003 01:43 PM