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Writing as an Editor
Mar. 27th, 2010 03:20 pmNote: This entry is cross-posted from Kat and Anna: Writing as an Editor at the annakatherine.com blog.
This morning Kat and I did a lecture thing at the New England RWA conference in Framingham, MA. It was called “Writing as an Editor” but we ended up not actually talking about the writing and instead discussing stuff like what a production editor does and how to prepare yourself for your inevitable awful copyedit. We also were distracted by our own pain about how Salt and Silver ended up being treated by our publisher.
One of the things we wanted to discuss and did not get around to is the difficulty of writing with a loud internal editor. It is really difficult to turn that editor off and just put the freaking words down on paper (or, in our case, type the freaking words into the shared Google document). Everyone who has a loud internal editor learns a different way to turn it off. I wish I had any super-effective tips or secrets to share—but I don’t. You just have to get past it, one way or another.
The way I personally silenced my inner editor most of the time was by making a deal: I would write for X words or hours, and then edit to fix.
(Anna: “Kat, how did you silence your inner editor while writing?”
Kat: “Panic.”)
Kat says that having a deadline was very reassuring—and that while writing, she felt confident in our backups. Me, our editor, our copyeditor, the proofreader, the production editor, our agent…
I too found it extremely reassuring that if I missed something in my own edit, Kat would be there to catch it. One does not necessarily need a co-writer for this—just a trusted critique or proofreading partner. It is much easier to fall backward blindly when you know someone is there who will definitely catch you—or at least cushion your fall.
Something to remember is that all authors feel the same. Seriously, you are not the only one who has ever had these problems, even if it feels like it sometimes. It’s very comforting to know that author and editor problems are actually universal—and if you as the author are annoyed with something to do with the book, probably the editor feels similarly, or can actually reassure you that your insecurities are not based in our reality.
We also talked at the presentation about a list we made up of things that authors can do that will make easier the lives of everyone involved in making the book—but we didn’t really go into each of these things in detail, so here’s the annotated list.
( Things Authors Should Do: A list )
This morning Kat and I did a lecture thing at the New England RWA conference in Framingham, MA. It was called “Writing as an Editor” but we ended up not actually talking about the writing and instead discussing stuff like what a production editor does and how to prepare yourself for your inevitable awful copyedit. We also were distracted by our own pain about how Salt and Silver ended up being treated by our publisher.
One of the things we wanted to discuss and did not get around to is the difficulty of writing with a loud internal editor. It is really difficult to turn that editor off and just put the freaking words down on paper (or, in our case, type the freaking words into the shared Google document). Everyone who has a loud internal editor learns a different way to turn it off. I wish I had any super-effective tips or secrets to share—but I don’t. You just have to get past it, one way or another.
The way I personally silenced my inner editor most of the time was by making a deal: I would write for X words or hours, and then edit to fix.
(Anna: “Kat, how did you silence your inner editor while writing?”
Kat: “Panic.”)
Kat says that having a deadline was very reassuring—and that while writing, she felt confident in our backups. Me, our editor, our copyeditor, the proofreader, the production editor, our agent…
I too found it extremely reassuring that if I missed something in my own edit, Kat would be there to catch it. One does not necessarily need a co-writer for this—just a trusted critique or proofreading partner. It is much easier to fall backward blindly when you know someone is there who will definitely catch you—or at least cushion your fall.
Something to remember is that all authors feel the same. Seriously, you are not the only one who has ever had these problems, even if it feels like it sometimes. It’s very comforting to know that author and editor problems are actually universal—and if you as the author are annoyed with something to do with the book, probably the editor feels similarly, or can actually reassure you that your insecurities are not based in our reality.
We also talked at the presentation about a list we made up of things that authors can do that will make easier the lives of everyone involved in making the book—but we didn’t really go into each of these things in detail, so here’s the annotated list.
( Things Authors Should Do: A list )
