Monday, July 30, 2012

Both Sides Now

Having spent time as an editor over at The Rose & Thorn e-Zine many years ago, I can appreciate the work editors put in to the stories they publish. And so now, on the other side of the writer/editor relationship I'm trying to be easy to work with. Spencer Hill Press sent back my "Esther" story with some edits, and I've already made them and sent the story back. Quick, easy, relatively painless. I agreed with about 99% of what they said and so am not putting up a fight. I want to be a writer editors enjoy working with, not a pain in the butt.

That said, this is really my first experience in making changes for an editor, and it was for a story of less than 7K words. Maybe things will be different if Bloodsisters gets picked up. I hope not...I am definitely open to critiques and suggestions, but will they be harder when I'm doing them for a much, much longer work than for a short story?

Once, while I was an editor, I got into a nasty, knock-down, drag-out fight with a writer over a single word in his story, a word I felt did not match the tone of the rest of the story. My managing editor finally had to step in. I hope I never become the kind of writer who drives an editor crazy over a single word.

I feel the same way in my parenting life right now. As a teenager I babysat a lot. And now I have kids and I'm the one interviewing and hiring babysitters. Being on the other side of any relationship is certainly eye-opening, and gives me an appreciation for what editors/babysitters go through.

And now, "The Esther" is back out to the nice folks at SHP. Time to return to early 20th century Japan and my novel.

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