Divide and Conquer

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Divide

I'm probably not the best person to ask about this but it is definitely worth consideration: how do you divide your time between writing and the rest of life? In the past few weeks I've discovered one method: if you give yourself goals then you make the time to write. It started with two calls for submissions that were due within a day of each other. While scheduling travel and adventure I made time for my writing and, therefore, managed to submit to both of the journals I was going for; one successfully, the other I haven't heard from yet. Whether I get in to both, either or none is not the point, though. The point is that I managed to give myself writing time and that made me realise that I could do it anytime I liked. Which, of course, hasn't effected me in the least. So I found a couple more journals to submit to. I'm sure it can work in other ways; scheduling by calendar or setting an amount of time per day. I'm equally sure that these things haven't worked for me so I'll just keep chasing journals for the time being.

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Conquer

There are some things we as editors are out to conquer: bad spelling, incorrect grammar, those roadblocks that stop the reader in their tracks. I've recently found something much bigger and harder to overcome, however, and that is editing confidence. It's hard starting out in any industry but I feel that editing is harder still. Every other job that I've done have had clearly defined lines: receptionists should answer the phone within three rings, you should use apply pressure with a cloth to stop bleeding, a single shot of coffee should take fifteen seconds, etc. Editing, on the other hand, is very fluid work. Aside from absolutes like spelling and many aspects of grammar we wrestle with questions of style — the sentence may be grammatically correct but does it flow? Is it easy for the reader to follow its progression? Is there too much nesting (sections within sections within sections)? This is where there are no real rules; the best that we can do is identify areas where we believe these problems are occurring and recommend re-writes. This is where the fear lies and where we can conquer our demons. For me it was a simple choice: I weighed up the thought of incurring an author's wrath against leaving something out which should be noted. I decided to leave nothing out and recommend everything I deemed necessary. This is the victory. Editors of the world believe in yourselves and put those recommendations in!