Enraged Editing

I love writing.  It’s fun, it’s relaxing, and it gives me the opportunity to express little nuggets of weird from within the deep recesses of my often twisted mind.

That being said, my true love has always been editing.  Any time an editing job makes its way to me, I’m thrilled.  No matter the subject, I love looking at an essay, a paper, a story, and doing my part to help it reach its full potential.  Each and every piece of writing is a challenge just waiting to be improved upon.  To me, it’s a puzzle, and I’m pretty damn good at it.

Unfortunately, there are downsides to considering oneself an editor.  I mean, downsides in addition to existing in a world full of appallingly bad writing that seems to leap out from the newspaper, the radio, and an infinite number of other sources to punch you in the brain.

Everyone’s a writer!
Yes, it would appear that each and every individual that fancies him or herself an expert on some topic also magically believes him or herself to be an expert in writing.  How convenient, right!?  NO, NOT RIGHT.  People that have truly good ideas about their field, whatever that field may be, can always benefit from having a skilled writer or editor working with them to brainstorm organizational techniques, target and write toward the appropriate audience, and generally polish their work into a suitable final product.  Consulting a writer is a step that is consistently overlooked because too many people believe that, as a speaker of a language, they are also qualified as a writer of said language.  This phenomenon is, incidentally, why so many companies decide not to hire writers and is consequently why I am currently toiling away at a job that has nothing to do with my skill set.  “Oh, we don’t need someone entirely devoted to writing,” they stupidly declare, “We can just split the writing and editing duties between a few existing employees to save time and money.”  Listen, people.  Your scientist needs someone to adapt his report to be palatable to the general public.  Your receptionist shouldn’t be doing your company newsletter.  Your web designer can make your site look pretty, but that doesn’t mean he can write decent content.  This is why we can’t have nice things, people.  This is why we can’t have nice things.

Passing high school English does not a writer make.
When people learn that you are interested in writing, they instantly feel the need to tell you about how well they did in English class and how many friends’ papers they edited during their college years.  Typically, this makes me cringe on behalf of the teachers who received an influx of poorly written, poorly edited papers one semester and never understood why.  When I have an acquaintance that continually brings up writing projects, I automatically become suspicious.  Soon, I muse, Soon they will ask me to read their books.  Sometimes, I’m pleasantly surprised.  A few years ago, I had a friend who constantly wanted to talk about his story ideas, and finally asked me to read his first few chapters.  It was obvious from his nervousness that he loved his story and desperately hoped I wouldn’t rip it to shreds.  He asked me for complete, brutal honesty:  it was good, because brutality is really my strong point.  Despite a few consistent grammar stumbles, I found his story to be interesting and his characters to be engaging.  At the same time, I had another friend who couldn’t have been more confident in her abilities.  She believed herself to be above her surroundings, an intellectual in a sea of commoners.  One day, she told me she wanted to prepare one of her books to be submitted to publishing houses and asked if I could read it over to look for any minor issues;  she had just done a revamp of the book and needed a fresh set of eyes.  I spent an hour reading, trying desperately to understand what she was talking about through the flowery language, the muddled sentence structure, and the grammatical butchery.  After that hour, I realized I had only gone through seven pages.  I told her that the project was longer than I realized and I would have to consider it a freelance project;  fortunately, she never brought it up with me again to discuss rates.

Editing vultures.
“Hey, you like writing!” they say.  “I have a paper due tomorrow, and I’d like to have someone give it a quick once-over before I turn it in.  I’ll email it over!”  Editing vultures, as I call them, have a very specific MO. They (being individuals that communicate with you ONLY when they want something) claim to be looking for constructive criticism, but in reality, they want a group of people to say things like, “Wow, this sounds really good!” or “Here’s a typo, but other than that, you’re a great writer!”  This is blatantly obvious because they never give you more than 48 hours to review their work.  I have a simple way of dealing with these people:  I edit the ever loving shit out of whatever they send me.  I don’t rewrite things for them, though.  Oh, no.  Those services are reserved for people who pay for the premium Nancy editing.  The free version just gets you 1,000 text boxes in your Word document with such helpful comments as “This is awkward,” “Your sentence structure needs variation,” and “This sentence is unclear; rework it to express your point more effectively.”  The last essay I received from an editing vulture had a 500 word limit;  my comments alone amounted to about 700 words.  So a word to the editing vultures out there?  If you really want help, great.  For a totally reasonable fee, I would love to read your shitty essay and make suggestions.  Otherwise, have fun completely rewriting your paper and dealing with the haunting realization that you have 12 hours to go and no real idea of where to start.

You have a thesaurus?!  Congratulations.
There are people in this world that believe with all their hearts that committing something to writing requires complex, nigh unreadable, sentence structure and a multitude of $10 words peppered throughout.  In reality, this type of writing serves only to make the writer look like an asshole.  Well, at least to experienced writers.  Tragically, such pretentious writers tend to congregate together in certain industries and encourage one another to write LONGER sentences and use MORE OBSCURE words!  They hang out in packs and try to one-up each other as their giant egos cause their heads to swell until they rupture in a firework show of rampant stupidity.  Or at least I like to imagine.  In reality, the solution is simple:  have you ever used that word in conversation?  No?  Then why do you think it’s okay to use it in your writing?

So, will I judge you if you say “me and my friend” or “my friend and I” in the wrong section of a sentence?  No, it doesn’t matter.  Will I make nasty comments when you misspell things in your Facebook status?  I’ll roll my eyes and smirk, most definitely, but there are far worse Facebook sins.  I just ask that you put a little bit of care into your writing because it’s part of you, and that you respect those that exist to help.

All complaints aside, they best tip I can give in terms of writing is to know your strengths and weaknesses.  You have issues with organization?  List your ideas and consult with someone before you start writing anything so that you can settle on a solid direction.  You have problems with spelling?  Make sure to use word processing software with spell check and highlight words you’re unsure of for future reference.  A specific word or phrase giving you fits?  DON’T USE THAT WORD OR PHRASE.

But let’s be real:  my editing pet peeves will not be so easily defeated.  They will pop up in my inbox and the professional world for the rest of my days, a written manifestation of fingernails on a chalkboard scraping along the inside of my brain for all eternity.  Last week, I read something aloud to boyfriend for confirmation of its awfulness, explaining its grammatical crimes.

“Wow,” he said, “I could tell that sounded wrong, but I wasn’t sure why.  Do you always look at written things like that?”

I nodded solemnly.

“Oh man, that must really suck.”

Yes, boyfriend, it does suck.  Sometimes, I’m not sure how my brain endures it.  Then, I look down at my lap while I’m working on a particularly painful project and see this:

Seriously, cat, everyone is really lucky you exist.

Thanks, Simon!  You’re the best at keeping me from smacking people!

Martial Arts Masochism

Remember when I trained for my black belt test?  The time commitment, the exhaustion, the injuries, the lack of social life?  Well, I’m doing it again.

Oh, don’t worry, I’m not testing for second degree.  Not yet.  Not for a long while yet.  No, I”m testing for ANOTHER first degree black belt, this time in modern wushu.

I will explain it in non-kung fu geek terms:  my first black belt, earned through the International Wushu Sanshou Dao Association, focused on a balanced curriculum of barehand forms (both internal and external), weapons forms, striking techniques, throwing techniques, joint locking techniques, fighting ability, and physical strength.  The new black belt, hopefully to be earned through Jose Johnson’s Chinese Martial Arts and Wellness Center, is an intensive curriculum focused solely on external barehand and weapons forms.  That means less fighting and more performing…so possibly fewer injuries!  …Possibly.

I’m a bit apprehensive about what almost feels like a regression: typically students begin with basics and standardized forms, then move on to application techniques and forms of their choice.  I did it backwards:  I started with learning to fight and doing styles that I like, and now I’m moving to a group of forms that aren’t really my jam.

Why would I do this, you ask?  Why not stick with a few forms that I enjoy and learn those inside and out?  Well, two reasons:

1)  If I get a black belt at the Center, I can wear a shiny silk suit and get my picture up on the wall.
2)  Spite.

Back when I was training in Pittsburgh, we had an instructor that worked with the club.  She was rude, she was arrogant, and she believed with all her blackened little heart that she was better than all of us in every way imaginable.  The first time she was dismissive of my abilities, I was sort of taken aback.  After a few years of taking kung fu lessons, I had never been approached in such a way by an authority figure.  I shook it off and learned to integrate constructive criticism into my practice while completely ignoring criticism that had no basis in reality.  After a while, her ego soared and her negativity began to affect all the students.  They would come to me and ask what they’d done wrong, or why she dismissed their hard work.  When I approached her about disrespecting the students, she said, “Listen, you aren’t even close to as good as you think you are, so just let me coach.”

HA!  I thought.  Joke’s on you, bitch, I think I’m terrible!

It was then that I realized how pervasive baseless egos are in the martial arts world.  And it was then that I vowed never to waste one more moment of my valuable time training with someone whose ego eclipsed their skill and dedication.

BOW TO YOUR SENSEI.

So when boyfriend asked me if I would be interested in taking my black belt test on the contemporary curriculum, the only style she practices, I smirked and told him I would start training immediately.  I have new friends at the Center to train with.  We work hard, we laugh, we share compliments and critiques, and we support each other.  There is always room for growth, and I’ve found a place where I can foster that growth and excel.

I can’t wait to take my test, whenever it may be.  It will be a challenging time for me, but it will be worth it.  I have resolved to enjoy every second, regardless of whether or not I like the forms.  I will take from them what I need and move on.  The former instructor from Pittsburgh will never know that I’ve earned another black belt.  She won’t know when I move to second degree, third degree, or more.  But I don’t care, because I will be stronger and better with every day of practice, and she’ll still be hateful and egotistical and, deep down, incredibly insecure.

So this, really, will be my black belt in spitefulness.  And that will make it the most satisfying black belt of all.