My Editor

One of my best friends has turned into my editor, and this is a good thing. She corrects almost all of my blog posts, essays, publications, and important emails. I really don’t know what I would do without her. It’s strange to have one of your friends in a semi-professional role, but she seems to fit it well.

I will hand her my work and she will do an odd thing. There in front of me, she will transform from a normally effervescent little blonde girl into the Scottish Presbyterian minister, Rev. Maclean, from Norman Maclean classic semi-autobiographical, and world’s best fishing novella, A River Runs Through It. And I will end up standing there staring at me feet and waiting for a curt "good, now make it half as long" or similar criticism of whatever it was that I thought was at least passable.

There are, of course, some drawbacks to having an excellent editor in your professional life. After spending hours working on something that I think is witty or intelligent, she will read through it and, instead of commenting on its absolute brilliance, will say something along the lines of, “you missed one comma and a couple apostrophes”. To which I will glare at her and immediately troll for some sort of compliment. “So, what did you think?”

“It’s good,” she’ll say, “This third sentence doesn’t make any sense. Work on that.” Then I go back and make revisions. Honestly, I’m never sure how anything I write will be received because of her cool and businesslike manner.

She has recently decided to head back to school and pursue an MFA. I anticipate her becoming a world-class fiction writer and can only hope that she charges the same amount to review my work when that happens.

So if you have read any of my work (blogs, essays, newspaper articles, whatever’s…) thank Kate for helping me to make my jejune cerebration coherent. (And for usually stopping me from writing sentences like the previous one).



Disclaimer: This post was in no way edited by Kate. Sorry.