10 (11) Ways To Tell Your Editor Hates You

Everyone knows editors are the natural born enemies of writers. We’re…uh. They’re mean, narrow-minded, ruthless people without an ounce of human compassion in their black, shriveled, gin-scented hearts. Bitter and entirely destroyed by the rigors of life, they hate everyone – but especially hate writers. And books. With a passion. And it’s likely that your editor hates you. In fact, it’s pretty obvious. Not sure if your editor hates you or not? Look for these 10 11 signs:

1. He points out your errors. It’s impossible to be perfect with some asshole constantly griping at you about comma abuse, homonym misuse, and proper apostrophe placement. You never do anything wrong. The dude needs to just back off.

2. He explains things to you about grammar, proper usage, plotting, characterization, etc. What does he think you are, five? Of course you know these things. You know everything. He just doesn’t get that you’re exercising your stylistic freedoms. And why is he giving you lessons in history, physics, Cantonese slang, Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, and the limits to which the human body can strain in that particular position of the Kama Sutra? You’re creative. You don’t have to be factually accurate.

3. He suggests improvements to your story and style. If you’d wanted to write it the way he suggested, you’d have done it that way in the first place. Even if you’d never thought of it before. Jesus. What an ass. He’s probably a failed writer with nothing better to do than try to undermine your talent. If he’s so smart, he can go write a book. You don’t need to improve anything. Ever.

4. He makes you do all the work of implementing his recommended changes. Cripes. You wrote the book once already. Why should you have to retain ownership of your characters and storyline to write it again? All that BS he spouts about trusting you and your talent, and about not taking over your story…pfft. He’s just blowing smoke up your ass because he’s too lazy to do it himself. He should just whip everything together and take care of it; it’s not your problem anymore. Editors are really just glorified proofreaders anyway. Everyone knows that.

5. He actually thinks your writing should mature with each iteration of edits and each new story. Why should you have to change what’s already perfect? So what if you just had to rewrite ten pages of action because he decided the existing scene created a plot hole the size of a mutant manatee? You’ll just dash it off and send it in as-is, flaws intact. Nevermind the fact that he’s spent the entire manuscript griping like your mother-in-law about semicolons can’t be used that way or make sure the modifying clauses agree with the main subject, verb, and object. Whine, whine, whine. If your writing style changed from edit to edit and book to book, he wouldn’t have anything to do. You’re just being considerate and keeping him from getting bored. After all, he wouldn’t have a job without you.

6. He’d rather go without sleep than miss another chance to go through your manuscript. I mean, obviously he’s just trying to create problems and he’s got a grudge against you. Does it really matter if every instance of the word Green in the Manuscript is CapitaLiZed? Get a life, man. Maybe if he slept more than three hours a day he wouldn’t be so nitpicky.

7. When you halfass your edits, he makes you do them again. Clearly he doesn’t understand that you skipped 75% of his editorial commentary because it was all asinine and destructive, demonstrating that he doesn’t get what you’re doing. Also, see previous comment re: getting a life. Doesn’t he think you have anything better to do?

8. He makes you kill your darlings. You spent months crafting that perfectly placed piece of purple prose, with its precisely poetic palliteration. You love that particular figure of speech and damn it, even if it’s not appropriate, you’ll make it appropriate. Your favorite 20-page scene detailing the movie the lovers watched in chapter 40 just touches your heart and reminds you of when you first watched it at a slumber party 72 years ago. You adore the way you always write “ocular orb-thinguses” instead of “eyes;” it’s your signature. You love your art. You are your art. And he’s trying to destroy you by making you cut out the things you love most. Nevermind that the narrative makes more sense without them. He’s ruining the beauty of the thing.

9. He challenges you. He pushes you beyond your comfort zones and asks you to write things you’ve never written before, try things you’ve never thought of, learn new ways to do an old art. What is he trying to do, give you nightmares? New experiences are traumatizing. If you take risks, you might fail. Wait. That’s it, isn’t it? He wants you to fail.

10. He gives you deadlines. You have other priorities. Your hair appointment is this afternoon, your dog needs a mani-pedi, you’re working on a brilliant new story that will blow the NYT list out of the water. Look, those deadlines can wait. It’s not that hard to put a book together. You can just turn it in the day before the release date and it’ll be fine. It’s not like there are any other books in the pipeline, anyway. Yours is the only one that matters. If your editor really cared, he’d prioritize you above everyone else.

11. He makes you self-promote. And he’s out there promoting you, too. I mean, really. There are marketing and PR people for that. You shouldn’t have to self-promote; you are the author, the diva, the prima donna who watches from an ivory tower as the fans come flocking. You shouldn’t have to do anything to draw them. And heaven forbid anyone expect you to speak with them or engage them in any way. They aren’t authors like you.

If your editor meets even half these criteria, it’s obvious that he or she hates you and wants your book to fail. Or at the very least, they’re trying to make you as insane as they are. You should take up drinking. Make sure you drink while you write and while you edit; it’s a bonding experience, and you’ll be keeping your editor company. It won’t affect the quality of your work at all.

Besides, even if it does, your editor will fix it. That’s what he’s there for, after all.

I just know someone out there will take this seriously. And then I’m going to cry. You wouldn’t want to make a poor, defenseless, exhausted editor cry, would you?

That time of the year again.

Yep, shaved him again. We keep bursting into giggles every time we see him.

We’re pretty much officially in the new place now. It’s still made of awesome. There’s a loose wire on the hot water heater, but that’s so, so minor compared to all the stuff wrong with the old place. We need to pick up a few things the movers didn’t get, tidy up the old place, and then drop off the keys and we’re done. If you haven’t seen the gorgeous pics, Hikaru has photos here, here, and here.

See why I’m in love?

Tomorrow I may finally be able to settle down after work to do some writing. It’ll be a quiet day with Hikaru out of the house; I need to read a bit of a WIP by Kerry, then I want to explore one of three concepts: Frost, Vagrant, or Rock Star. All three YA; Vagrant is magical realism, not quite urban fantasy, while Rock Star is just a teen story, no magic, no sci-fi. Frost is…uh…odd. Post-apocalyptic, fantasy with touches of sci-fi…not really high fantasy, not really urban fantasy. Something like Descending Light, but darker. And no dragons.

Not sure which one I’m going to work on; we’ll see what I’m in the mood for in the morning, and where it goes.

Green as can be.

Hikaru and I are looking into adopting an adult cat from the local no-kill shelter; the more cats they find homes for, the more room they have to take animals from the kill shelters so they won’t be euthanized. There are three that are just luring us like you wouldn’t believe, but we can only have one. We could probably handle four in-home cats, but it wouldn’t be fair to Chathra (who has an appointment to get shaved again Monday, poor thing). He’s skittish enough without dumping three adult cats on him. We’ll have to be careful about socializing him to one. The one to the right is Lora; we probably won’t adopt her, but I want to. I just want to take her home and feed her until the skinny little thing just about pops, then cuddle her to sleep.

There are days when I wish I wasn’t human, so I wouldn’t feel jealousy. I’m happy to see other writers succeeding, and I can only hold on to the hope that if I keep trying and keep improving, I’ll get there one day. I’ll have the same experience they’re having. At the same time, though, an ugly side of me is jealous. Well, no…not jealous. Jealousy would mean I don’t want them to have those wonderful experiences, and I do. I just want to have them, too. So maybe “envious” is a better word. I want to share that success with them, not take it away from them. I suppose jealousy and envy are natural things to feel, but frankly I don’t like being that petty and strive not to be.

I know, that may seem hypocritical after this post. It’s not, I promise. I’m still being hopeful and positive. My pink kittens are emitting a great deal of sunshine from their nether regions, enough to give me sunburn. It’s a long road, and without hope and determination I’ll never get where I want to be. Sometimes I’m just a little envious of those who are already there. I think my pink kittens may be napping during those spells.

One day. Just have to be patient, keep trying, and keep writing the best stories I can. (Well, that and remember professionalism, etc. Writing is a luxury; publishing is a business, and you’ll never get anywhere if you aren’t polite, professional, and attentive to the requirements of the various people you hope to work with. No matter if it’s your dream, it’s also a job and should be treated that way.)

We’re almost done moving, and perhaps when we’re settled down I’ll be able to get back on a daily writing routine. I peck out a little on Shadow’s Voice now and then, but I probably shouldn’t push much on that until I find out if Shadow’s Breath will even sell. No point writing a sequel unless the first book works out. There are two others ideas I’m percolating on, Frost and Vagrant; once I get some free time I’ll have to take a stab at both and see which one grabs me. I go through so many story ideas it’s ridiculous, but then they aren’t all viable. Sometimes I have to play with them a little to see if they’re really worth writing.

Bah. I have to go finish work, then finish packing. This post has been brought to you by the letter P and the word Procrastination.

Public service announcement.

Unless you’re very experienced with them and your cat is very accustomed to them, don’t ever try those cat bathing bags.

Not unless you want a traumatized, half-strangled kitty, water everywhere, and scratches on every area of skin he can reach when he manages to get one area of the bag open, kick it off his body, then invert it so his head is stuck inside while he thrashes around in a hysterical panic.

Next time?

PetSmart groomers.

Oi; my poor baby.