EDITING, THE DOOR TO THE LAND OF ANXIETY

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

They're slippery devils, words.

I have never been a fan of editing, or specifically, picking at every written word as though it needed to go under a microscope.

It's not as though in my years as a freelance writer, I was never edited. But if you are writing for a magazine with a monthly deadline, there's no time for the staff to go into multiple edits, chewing over each word 30 times. It has to get finished in order to meet the deadline. The clue is in the name.

Sometimes I would notice staff editing after my finished article was in print. Once I saw that the editor had added the word PASTICHE to an article about quilts. I'd never heard of the word, and had to look it up to see what it meant. (Definition: an artistic style that imitates that of another work.) But there it was under my name, as if I had written it that way. The readers would not have any idea that, as the author of that article, I had no idea what it meant.

OK, maybe if a piece of writing was edited and edited and edited, the words would be as polished as diamonds on a pebble beach, but the magazine would never go out on time. Out of time, then out of business!

Which brings me to a situation that I've encountered recently. A friend of mine asked for my help with her a written submission that was her final project in order to finish a therapy course. She is not a writer by nature, and this piece of writing was not for public consumption.

But the anxiety it was producing was palatable. She fretted over it to the point of being ill. She didn't know how to shape it, and had written 19,000 words instead of the 5,000 words required. The amount of word cutting was enormous.

Finally, nearing completion, she admitted that the whole thing was causing her great anxiety. Should I express it this way, or that way, or should she cut it altogether and use different words?

As we finished off the project and got it submitted, we came to the conclusion (jointly) that writing is difficult because there is no one right way of doing it. No matter how long or how diligently you try to make it perfect, there is always another way of saying the same thing. Writing is knitting together of a fog of words. It can be expressed in so many ways. So many choices. No wonder it can produce anxiety.

This observation was also brought home to me recently in a webinar I took about entering a writing contest. How each piece should be polished, polished, polished. Perhaps dozens of re-writes in order to “make it the best it can be.” Well, there's nothing wrong with wanting your words to be the best they can, except, they're slippery devils, words. One word can work as well as another for some thoughts, and then it's a question of which one is best? I might think version A is the best, editors might think version B is the best, and the contest judges (if they ever saw the choice of various pre-submission versions) might think version C was the best.

My point is: get it down! Think it over. Tinker a bit, and then, let the darn thing GO. The more you fuss over it, the worse it can get. Perhaps there is another way of making it sound better. Perhaps it DOES need yet another go-round with the editing red pencil. But really, you can drive yourself crazy with anxiety, endlessly trying to produce not only what you think is the perfect phrasing, but one that other people will also think is perfect as well. (Good luck with that!)

The whole editing merry-go-round reminded me of when I was part of a poetry “appreciation” group. One of the members was strongly of the opinion that the poet had used “the wrong word” in the poem we were discussing. Finally, I'd had enough, and said, “Well, the poet chose that word, the editor thought it was the right word, it's been published with that word, so MAYBE IT IS THE RIGHT WORD!” (There goes my diplomacy certificate!)

I guess in my old age, I have become much more casual about my writing. If I think it's good enough, if I want it to arrive on time to wherever it is going, I have to be willing to say, “That's it. Out into the world with you!”

How about you? Do you let editing drive you round the bend? Or round the twist, as they say here in England? Do you beat yourself up over it? Are you on Draft 10?

Is there such a thing as good enough?

Until next Monday,

Cheers,

Rose