On Being Edited
Like, really edited.
Hello, friends! Newsletter is a little later this week, but for a good reason (I hope): I’ve been writing more. I guess that’s the paradox at the heart of this project—the more I do the thing I want this newsletter to help me with, the less time (and, let’s be honest, motivation) I have to write the newsletter. I need to work on setting more achievable goals.
But the particular reason why I was running behind also feels like good fodder for this week’s subject: I got notes back from a trusted reader for a new thing I’m working on. They were really smart notes, thick and juicy, the kind that change the depth and dimensions of what you’re looking at in ways that make you go aha and holy shit and rev you up to take another swing. But that also means that they were, how shall I put this, not small notes. First-round notes. On-the-right-track-but-not-quite-there-yet notes.
In addition to doing what they were meant to do—push me to think about the piece in different, deeper, keener ways—they also prompted me to think about how I respond to edits as a writer. In my day job, this is usually a question I attack from the other side. I love editing. I love helping a writer shape an argument and sharpen their voice and find their audience. I love weird, granular little moments like this one, which I present to you without context:
It is easy to romanticize the noble work of editing when you’re an editor. It is easy to extol the virtues and necessity of a tough, unsparing eye. As a byproduct, I’m also guilty of swanning around breezily being like oh yeah, I love being edited because what else am I going to do, slander my own kind?
But when I do that, I don’t think I’m being entirely honest. I think I’m conflating the process of being edited with the satisfaction of having been edited generously and well. The first one’s kind of a given. Any old pal can chop up your copy, delete blocks of text, and leave marginal notes in all-caps that say BORING. But the second thing is much rarer and more delicate. It takes care, and time, and attention. It requires a kind of deep engagement with the work that makes me feel almost ashamed by how generous it is—and how thoroughly it means my ideas get X-rayed. In this case, that is very much the kind of feedback I got.
But engagement of this kind can also bring up a lot of uglier feelings, too. When I first get back an editor’s notes, I often spring into defensive mode. I suspect I’m not alone in this, and that that’s why the rather pointed phrase once you’ve had some time to sit with the notes is so common. Me, I’m not great at sitting. I open up the document and skim for things I can fix right away, like I’m trying to patch a leaky boat or correct some sort of hemorrhaging karmic imbalance. Like I’ve committed a horrible, unforgivable personal affront against my editor and all of their descendants, and only by clicking accept can I begin to rectify this yawning breach of etiquette. This is almost always, without fail, my knee-jerk response. The is everybody mad at me school of being edited. Or, maybe more honestly, the fear that I’ll never have enough time to make the piece as good as I want it, or that my claim on a given editor’s attention is a shrinking window, so I better hop to it as soon as the draft hits my inbox.
I’m not reinventing the wheel when I say that these are not ideal emotional conditions for doing good creative work. Sometimes, sure, I can turn a nice phrase when I have my nose pressed right up against the text. But, more often, I’m forced to admit that I can’t see the thing; that I have to step back. That this feedback is not a needless burden on the light, fluid mindset in which I drafted, but more like critical ballast that gives the writing greater stability and direction. Then, of course, the clouds lift, the sun comes out, the angels sing, and I realize that my editor is a genius whose children’s children’s children are going to be absolutely fine; blessed, even, for having such a luminary as an ancestor.
Again: this is contingent on the edit being good. Sometimes your vision and the editor’s are so clearly at odds that the process becomes a desperate struggle of self-advocacy, like trying to explain yourself to a disbelieving physician. Sometimes nothing short of cursing their offspring will make trudging through the notes remotely manageable. But, if you’re lucky, you’ll find a person—maybe even more than one—who peers into the work and extracts for you the very thing you were afraid to confront yourself. Find that person and don’t let them go.
Miscellany
Everyone needs to read Anna Fitzpatrick’s very funny, very sexy novel Good Girl. It came out in the US a couple weeks ago but it’s been making waves in Canada for months longer, courtesy of the very cool Toronto-based indie publisher Flying Books. Let’s give it a warm stateside welcome.
I am very mad about the Gawker news. The masthead was full of stars and the criticism was on-point and web design was zany in a way that perfectly encapsulated its energy. It is (was, ugh) the publication that I read more than any other, and also probably learned more from than any other in terms of what it means to create and execute an editorial vision and identity and personality. What a gift to watch that happen in real time. I also had an amazing experience writing this critique of smug Canadian exceptionalism for them about a year ago. (It’s okay, I’m from there. I’m allowed.)