I spelt Leonado da Vinci wrong: Trusting The Editor's seal of approval.

**Leonardo da Vinci

I have both edited and been edited several times and I am comfortable with the process – or so I thought.

Over time, I’ve learned to really love elements of editing. I’ve learned to trust editors – mostly – but also be confident to question them where I don’t think they quite ‘understand’. I’ve also learned strategies for providing distance. Responding to a series of edits straight away is usually not wise. I need to read through them, and let my potential knee-jerk reactions subside, before going in and just ‘giving it a go’.

One phase of editing I have always particularly enjoyed, is the line or copy editing phase. Some writers have described being intimidated by the red lines all across their work. I always found it refreshing, validating, microcosmic. I love getting tangled up in all the red lines and wading my way through a series of edits, accepting, responding, occasionally rejecting and justifying why I have done so.

You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone, it’s a cliché, but I’m afraid it’s true. I never realised just how much security and comfort I receive from a good solid copyedit until I received a copyedit on a recent art piece, with a sum total of 3 comments across an entire 2000 word piece. Granted, the form of the piece meant some mistakes were actually deliberate, but it’s not like there were other track changes either. 3 comments was the sum total of their editorial assistance on my piece.

3 comments!

This shook me more than I anticipated.

Originally I had had confidence in my work, knowing that the idea was strong, and the structure was well developed. My expression was clear and my piece was witty and funny. I know that my writing is rarely tight or error free (after all I just changed tense in the middle of this paragraph) but knowing that an editor was going to copyedit the work had given me assurance.

3 comments was not confidence inspiring.

It was even less confidence inspiring, when I copyedited myself and found a whole slew of errors, including that I had spelt Leonardo da Vinci’s name wrong and my editor never said anything. I also had consistent spaces in places where I shouldn’t and slew of other mistakes and errors.

I fixed them

Well I think I did

I fixed the ones I found

But I’ve never been very good…

…at finding mistakes…

…in my own work

So who knows how many flaws…

…still…

…exist

In the end I had to accept that my piece, regardless of its edit, was strong. My ideas were well formed and mostly clear. The average reader – even the slightly above average reader – is not going to ever know that it wasn’t thoroughly copyedited. The work is strong.

But this perspective was a challenge.