06/07/2017
Just a little musing on the writer/editor relationship by one of our mules' college creative writing professor. Food for thought on this rainy hump day!
What It's Like Being a Writer.
By Jenny Boylan
Miss Wilson's Class.
1. I got this idea for a piece, and i contacted an editor in march about it.
2. The editor said great, let me ask the others, and after that came back to me and said, Let's have lunch!
3. We had lunch and talked about the piece and it was exciting and the editor paid for lunch and it was fantastic.
4. I did the research for the piece in April, aiming at about 4000 words.
5. Heard back from the editor, we're really thinking more like 1000 words now.
6. I wrote a draft and hated it and didn't send it in. Next week i wrote a second draft, liked it better, sat on it for a few days. Then wrote a third draft, polished that, and sent it in.
7. A week or so later, editor says, Looks great! More soon.
8. A month goes by and I don't hear anything.
9. Monday night I get the piece back, with edits. They look good to me, and I think about them, spend part of Tuesday writing them, and sending them in.
10. Last night Tuesday at 9:30 I get the piece back which has now been looked at by other editors, with pretty significant changes both to the lede and some of the content. I send an email that says these changes "leave me dispirited," but that I'll get on it in the morning.
11. I spend all night dreaming about revising the story.
12. I get up in the morning and send the editor some grumpy emails. She writes back, We'll make it work. PS, we're down to 900 words now.
13. Sit down with the newest draft and put a pared down version of my original lede back into place, and pretty much take most of the other changes, which in the morning don't seem nearly so objectionable to me.
14. I send the piece in by 10 AM Wednesday with the understanding that the "book" closes at noon.
15. Now standing by to see if this draft will stand. I am presuming there will be a few more edits. Hoping I can keep the opening I liked. But you never know.
Someone once said to me, "Editors: they never want it until they want it, but when they want it, they want it that second."
It's a funny way of making a living, isn't it? What was the old cliche about Vietnam? "Days and days of crushing boredom interrupted once in a while by minutes of sheer terror."
I am really proud of this piece and hope it lands okay.
This is not a complaint about editors who time and time again have saved me from myself. But the collaboration between editor and writer is like nothing else-- part love affair, part adversary, part business partner, part co-creator, part parent and child.
This whole post would have been a whole lot better if I'd let my editor work on it. But it probably would also have been a whole lot less recognizably me.
