I have an inner nerd, (along with my outer one) a guy with a white shirt, red tie, and
black horned-rimmed glasses. He
functions as an editor, one I want to throttle most of the time. Once in awhile, he gets hung on a nail
in the woodshed, just to get him out of my hair. He squirms and screams, but I am not deterred.
Somehow he always manages to sneak back into the study at
the end of the project. He wants
to take out all my best stuff: my
quirky turns of language, the brilliant insights—all my jokes.
Funny thing is this: those edits can sneak in from anywheres,
fellow writers who want to root out the main themes and the supporting
research, the boss who edits in stupidity, error, and bad grammar; the
secondary readers who can’t tell a noun from a verb, a subject from a predicate,
heaven from hell, or tater tots from crepes with lobster stuffing.
If I keep the editorial git hammered into place, corralled
and controlled, he loses interest, slinks back to his nail, then I can write in peace. I might need
him later.
Good post. I think we all have those nerdy inner editors. It's eerie how they can, at times, speak through others, isn't it? :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks! Mary. I wrote it at a LG's function; it was fun to share it with people.
DeleteB.