How to Be a Terrible Editor
I‘m going to show you how to edit. I’ve had some compassionate and thorough editors, so I know what I’m talking about.
However, this is not a piece about how to edit like you care. A thoughtful editor is $6.99 a dozen, and those aren't even the organic ones.
I’m a realist and we live in a world with negative role models. Not a how-to world, but a how-not-to world.
This is not the “Be like Mike!” planet of my youth. We now fester on a firey decomposing water-evaporting spherical turf where we cheer “Don’t be like Rudy Giuliani!”
This is why I no longer dye my roots with shoe polish. I don’t want to be like Rudy. He is my negative role model. I was one hot flash and TV appearance in front of a porn shop short of being canceled.
Thank you, disgraced ex-Mayor. Negative role models teach us everything we need to know. All our heroes are flawed, my friends.
Two of my old positive role models, Oprah and The Rock just bought Hawaii. Maybe they did it to save Hawaii but maybe they just wanted to own Hawaii. See how cynical I’ve become? Back in the day, I believed Oprah would show up at my house and give me a Pontiac. Now I suspect she’s a slum lord and a negative role model.
I don’t believe anyone anymore. Not even Bono, who was like the quintessential positive role model. Now I’m like, hold on. Still? He still hasn’t found what he’s looking for? What’s he looking for? He’s greedy. Stop looking, Bono. You have enough. He doesn’t even pay taxes.
As far as I’m concerned, my selfless PTA volunteer committee is one QAnon meeting short of becoming Marjorie Taylor Greene Academy. I’m not optimistic. I don’t know where to find positive role models.
But I’ve digressed. This is not a piece about any of that. Any good editor would have already scribbled in the margins, “Then what the hell is this piece about?”
I’m not going to teach you how to edit compassionately. I’m not here to remind you every writer is a human being who is sharing their newborn baby with you.
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