11.16.09

Editors Are Frogs?

Posted in Editorial Musings at 10:53 pm by Administrator

I enjoy reading Gene Weingarten’s weekly column in The Washington Post Magazine. On Sunday mornings, I tear into the paper to read three things: Get Fuzzy, Mutts, and Mr. Weingarten’s “Below the Beltway.” Each of these three things brings a smile to my lips and a song to my heart. Okay, that last bit wasn’t quite true, but Fuzzy, Mutts, and Gene do make me happy.

So imagine my shock this week when I turned to the back of the magazine to read Gene Weingarten and learned the following alleged fact: “Editors are frogs.” Huh? No, Gene. You should have consulted an actual editor before you wrote that. Editors are, in fact, higher-order mammals closely related to gibbons. We are in no way amphibious, and we do not taste good in tangy mustard sauce. In fact, we’re rather tough and stringy–not good eatin’. See, we’re not so different from you. Sure, some editors are what you would call “anal,” and some carry on unnatural relationships with certain punctuation marks, but most of us are just regular ol’ folks. Heck, some of us even play fast and loose with punctuation, spelling, and/or diction from time to time!?.() And deadlines? I laugh at deadlines! Ha! (Please note that the laughter will officially commence after the deadline has been met.)

My message is this: Be kind to your editor. Enough with the editor jokes and obsessive rewrites. Really, if you’re going to be such a pain in the rear, you should buy your editor a nice gift once in a while. A cruise to a tropical paradise sounds like just the thing. Or perhaps a freshly roasted writer and a jar of gourmet mustard sauce.

11.12.09

Stupid Things I Have Done

Posted in Editorial Musings at 8:10 pm by Administrator

Yes, I’m still here. I had a short vacation, followed by a bout of stupidity. I would blame the stupidity on the vacation, but I had actually planned for the stupidity before I even packed my suitcase. What was this stupid thing I did once and will never do again? I promised two authors I would do heavy edits on their rather long books in the same week. Normally, one heavy edit per week is plenty of work. Two is too much—way too much. Two is stupid.

Editing for twelve hours a day is not fun. Trust me on this. My brain still hurts. And let’s not even talk about my other end. Oh, what the heck. My butt hurts too. My back hurt for a while, but it’s better now. Editing in general is not for sissies. Editing hour after hour for days on end is only good for people who don’t mind missing out on life’s little joys. By “joys” I mean things like showering, eating a tasty dinner that did not come in a plastic tray, folding the laundry, reading the comics. Then there are the more basic things like breathing and watching Flash Forward. The only thing I haven’t been missing out on is sleep. Hey, I’m not that stupid.