I was going to call it "editing" or something, but revisionist history is a matter near and dear to my heart (given my formal academic training is largely as a historian, not at all as a writer), and I thought it would be cuter this way. Plus I have no idea if anyone's reading this, so I can name things whatever I want to.

I'm working on some editing right now, and I realized what my biggest problem with it always is; not rewriting things entirely.

I've tried my hand at doing a little editing/proofing for buddies, in the freelance biz, and the hardest part is trying not to turn their words into my words. When they write something I think is clunky or awkward, I have to remember that their voice isn't my voice, and my voice isn't theirs; what works for me (or what I THINK works for me) needn't do the same, and vice versa. I'm a terrible editor, and I always warn them that, because I'm basically a backseat writer. It's something I'm working on, something I'm trying to get better at to help out, but, yeah, I suck at it.

Trying to do some editing on my own stuff, meanwhile, is much the same (which, at least, makes me feel less like a narcissistic psychopath who just wants all his friends to write like him; I rewrite EVERYTHING I'm supposed to be editing, so at least I'm not a jerk about it). I recently had the opportunity to scribble away on an existing manuscript -- a novel, if you're interested, and a Kincaid novel, if you really care -- and I find myself constantly...doing the thing. Wanting to not just fix errors, but rewrite paragraphs. Reformat scenes. Tweak language. Add details. Foreshadow something later in the book. Rewrite some dialogue. Exclaim! Question? Specify.

I'm a terrible editor, because every document I open in order to nominally edit it, what I want to do instead is write Document 2.0, entirely. A sequel, a major revision, not just a...a...smoothing over of rough edges. I don't want to tweak and nudge, I want to hack and reform. I want to take the initial ideas of that first story -- whether mine or someone else's -- and I want to use those motivators and write something new with them. I want to use the first draft as nothing but inspiration to churn out a new work.

I'm a terrible editor.

I don't know how good editors do it, but -- as always -- my hat's off. They can have it.