In late January, I hit a couple writing milestones. I published my first essay of 2024,
an ode to the humble, analog labelmaker and its powers of redefinition in stellar pub
DIRT (
slip behind the paywall here). And I began to work through edits on my book manuscript from Beacon Press's great Catherine Tung.
One reason I'd chosen Beacon as my publisher was the expectation that I would actually get edited in a rigorous way—that my arguments and sentences would be challenged and refined via collaboration. Before undertaking this project, I think it's accurate to say I had done more professional editing, largely at
Urban Omnibus, than writing. So, naturally, I hold editors in high esteem, and think every writer benefits from working with one. Prior to submitting my manuscript, I'd had a number of close friends and colleagues review it. Their comments and suggested changes had undoubtedly strengthened the draft, as did my repeated honing as I read each chapter aloud. Despite all my convictions about editing, though, I couldn't help but gasp when I opened that file I'd been awaiting.
The manuscript I'd labored over for months bled tracked changes. I tried reading through, only to be halted by my indignation that some overly subtle reference had been missed or sorrow that some clever construction (more often than not previously recommended for deletion by another reader) had been excised. It was a rough day, one full of my ego and my attempts to wrangle it.
The next day, and the weeks that followed, were better. I'd settled down and could see the vision, could recognize myself and my arguments in even clearer form through the changes that Catherine suggested. My wife Haleemah sent me a
tweet that I would go back to as a humorous reminder to heed my editor's assessments, and not to always explain why I had structured something the way it had previously been written: