The Importance of Being an Editor
March 21, 2007
It’s Monday morning. Correction, Monday afternoon. The tips of my fingernails are non-existent, my brain is longing for caffeine, and my stomach is reminding me that I have not eaten since last night. My eyes gloss over as I stare at my computer screen, and curse the blinking cursor. It is the last day of production weekend. The newspaper you are holding in your hands is almost complete—complete except the article that I am currently writing.
One of my writerly friends was often fond of saying that the writing process could be likened to trying to extract water from a stone. I certianly am not Moses.
FOr me, an article always begins with an idea, a thought that lodges itself into the nether regions of my brain, waiting for the right opportunity to become black makrs on a white page.
Once I decide on an idea, I begin to write, to tell a story. This usually involves many starts and stops; in writing this article, I have started (and failed to start) five times already and counting. While writing, I stop several times to pace around the Mars’ Hill office, pen in my mouth, worried look on my face. If I’m lucky, I find a spring well of inspiration and I manage to squeeze a few drops onto my computer screen.
Unfortunately, even after I fnish writing, I am not done. Once the article is complete, It is time to break out the red pen and draw blood make revisions. Some articles I write need very little change; others require major additions, subtractions, or a complete restructuring. NO matter how good (or bad) the article appears to be, an article it must be edited and re-edited, until its ideas are refined and its words are clear and accurately reflect what I am trying to communicate.
My life as a university student looks much like this page: there have been many erros, punctuation problems, and, at times, a general lack of conhesion and sense, as I have tried to create something meaningful on the blank page that is mine to fill. I rarely get things right on the first try. At times, I wander off track and end up deleting entire paragraphs. I’m a senior I should know better by now. Progress is usually slow, and I am often unwilling to change things have written, even though I know they aren’t the best I should. I make many mistakes, some of which I see and correct immediately, and others that do not become apparent until much later. But when I go back and edit, every sentence must be called into question; every word must face the scrutinity.
This issue, I had the privilege of reading over 500 students’ responses to Mars’ Hill’s beliefs survey. While there was a great diversity of opinions expressed, one theme became evident to me as I read the open-ended responses: The four years we spend here, writing our own individual stories, are a tie to call into question every word, every letter we write, and to make revisions and fill the margins with well-reasoned thoughts, and stronger beliefs.
By the time we leave this place, we will, hopefully, have a coherent article. But the truth is, the article we write is ever really finished. No matter where we go or what we do after we leave this place, we there will always be faced with neve new questions That cause us to go back and edit.
Now you go...
Got something to say?