It’s that time of the year again. Christmas music is playing in all the stores; the scent of pine hangs in the air; people are starting to rush home with their treasures. (Okay, maybe that’s just me. I’m an early bird Christmas shopper.)
editors
Silence the Editors
Every time I start a new piece of writing, be it a poem, an essay, et cetera, I confront my editors. I have my internal editor, the one that wants to nitpick every sentence as it appears on the page. The other editors are external. They’re things like audience and approval ratings. All are hazardous when in the act of writing. They have to be silenced.
Write Right: The Editor’s Manifesto
What If the Writers Don’t Listen?
I recently was asked what I do if writers don’t listen to me. I was somewhat taken aback because I have no expectation that writers will listen to everything I say nor do I want them to. Writers are their own people, and they have a creative vision for their work that I may not fully understand despite my best attempts to read and critique closely. My job is to ask questions that encourage them to think and to be able to stand their ground when they are questioned about a choice they’ve made.
5 Things to Do before Approaching an Editor
Asking an editor to take on your work is not like turning in a paper to a college professor. In college, you might have been able to write something at the last minute and turn it in for a passing grade. It isn’t like that with a professional editor. A professional editor – be that a copy editor or a developmental editor – is going to put your work beneath a microscope. He or she won’t let you get away with inconsistencies or mistakes because the goal isn’t a passing grade. The goal is a manuscript that you’ll be able to publish – not for free or for your mom and her five friends but for money, preferably a lot of it.
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This is What an Editor Does
And now, because I missed the deer whole, I want to cut back the honeysuckle – just enough to see I think. See through.
To more?
To beyond and not here?
I am thinking that cutting can shift a thing – release a space, be a new pattern laid.
That clearing a space is like crafting a question.
Lia Purpura, On Looking