“I assure you my attention to detail will be back on track fro Monday.”
Yep, this was exactly what I sent my writer-in-chief after being blasted for my lack of attention to detail over the past few days.
Unfortunately, I also lack an editor for my emails as well as for the news reports I churn out. The platitude “you’re your own worst critic” doesn’t ring true in my case. I read my articles and think, “That’s fantastic! No changes needed!” [No, that’s not true – I don’t actually read my articles after the first draft.]
Seriously, I do go over my articles with a fine-toothed comb, especially to check content accuracy. I take everything except my food with a heavy dose of salt, especially when dealing with media releases from government agencies [you can't trust 'em] – skepticism is one of my super powers.
Sadly, attention to detail is not. My eye is not so refined within my own writing to pick out the space that shouldn’t be there between the number and the hyphen or the space that should be there between the parenthesis and the quotation mark. I’m concentrating too much on my voices in my head, the message, the accuracy, my egotistical assurance that everything is correct.
Our team of writers does not have editors to review their work. That is a major downfall. While you are your own worst critic, it is very difficult to edit your own work. You are seeing the same words, you subconsciously skip over actual phrases since you know what it says ‘The yada yada council approved the yada yada law’, and you do not have a fresh pair of eyes [and with my -6.75 eyesight, my eyes are anything but pop n’ fresh].
While writing my books, and prior to my news writer day job, I earned a crust as an editor. In that time, this is what I learned about editing: writers possess little ability and interest in doing so.
Editing is a skill, writing is a skill. Even if you posses both, their combination is like a liger – two strong elements equalling a weaker and infertile offspring. Best to leave these as two separate skill sets to gain maximum benefit out of both.
The morale of da storey: Keira wans and needs a editor!
Wa? You want BOTH skills?
