What's editing - and how do editors work with writers? Interview at Writers' Narrative magazine
Why is editing so important for writers? Why is it publishing’s biggest – and best-kept – secret?
How do editors work with writers to ensure clarity and consistency – and yet preserve the writer’s unique voice and flavour? What if the writer disagrees about changes the editor wants to make? How do we keep a dialogue going throughout the editing process so the writer doesn’t feel they’re losing…
at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
THEY EDIT FINE THINGS WELL: OFMD KISS AND KNIVES SCENES (S1 E9 & S2 E3) COMPARISON
Marveling at the OFMD editors who did so much more than just reuse Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Op. 15: VII. And Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes No. 5 from the season 1, episode 9 kiss scene in the season 2, episode 3 knife pulling scene.
Unedited audio from both episodes plays simultaneously in this comparison video. Take a look and a listen at what happens, with Gnossiennes No. 5 from 0:15 to 0:52. The music is playing twice, but you only hear it once because it matches perfectly. The way the verbalizations and dialogue work together are the kill-me-now gut punch taste-of-orange frosting on the best cake ever.
I need to make a point of saying that contrary to popular belief, I do not read. I do not enjoy reading, I hate being asked to read things, reading is exhausting and a chore. I like to write just for the sake of writing. The act of writing itself gives me so much gratification just to be able to do it!
But if I saw this bitch in the wild at 300k+ words I would never fucking touch it LMAOO doesn't matter HOW good it is man that's way too fucking long
what the fuck was I THINKING LMAO THIS SHIT IS INSANE I WOULD NEVER READ THIS
Not saying I think MM is bad or not worth the read. I certainly think it is! But for like, you know, people who like to read. Not me LOL glad some of y'all literally will sit and re-read this shit regularly though. Y'all juggernauts for that
It's not even like I write topics that I don't enjoy. I certainly enjoy them, otherwise I wouldn't be writing them. But I like writing them, not reading them. But that's not exclusive to topics, I just don't read anything in general
I'm sure there are many more factors at play than merely the rise of trope publishing and booktok demand, but the older I get, the more content I am with the notion of just. never getting published?
at this current moment, posting my stories fanfic-style on some online platform for the select few who are already invested in them sounds 100 times more appealing and fulfilling than going through all the stress of getting traditionally or self- published only to never hit the shelves of a Barnes & Noble
Wasn't originally going to do anything for mermay but I realized i could use it as an excuse to draw some of my selkie au (some more details of it under the cut)
The au is vaguely historical (i say vaguely cause its more flavor and there are still some mixed modern stuff) and takes place in the early 1900s
Elias is a paranormal researcher in Edinburgh who starts researching selkies and eventually meets Jon who is curious about humans
Yes, Elias eventually tricks him and steals his skin. he forces jon to return with him to the city and marry him
hiiiii hiiii just wanted to let you know I've updated my freelancing page with a couple new services & updated rates!!! tried my best to keep this as affordable as possible while ensuring the rate is fair to me & also have a bargain option now to keep things accessible :)
Rachel now offers:
Discounted combo - Line & developmental edits (starting $120USD, short stories/chapters)
Bargain - Line & developmental edits ($40USD, short stories/chapters, max 1500 words)
Line edits ONLY (starting $90USD, short stories/chapters)
Developmental edits ONLY (starting $60USD, short stories/chapters)
First page edits ($15USD, short stories/chapters)
Poetry edits (starting $15USD)
gonna monitor to see how these new prices go but if you're looking for an editor I'd LOVEEE to help!! :))
[ID: an uncoloured drawing for a panel next to the publicized version. They're both from the comic Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #194. In them, Batman is shown from the waist up. He's looking at Jim Gordon, who's off panel, with a penitent expression after being accused of something he secretly did do. He has his palm pressed against his chest and is blocking the bat emblem as his other hand is clasped ontop of it. In the initial drawing, there's a halo floating above his head as well as several tiny hearts mixed in with the lights that surround him. In the publicized panel, the hearts and halo has been removed and two speech bubbles have been added. He's in front of a terra rose background and is starting to say, “Jim, I don't even know what you're...” But Jim cuts him off, saying, “Stop it. I'm tired of this.”
The third photo is a description of the drawing from the artist's (Seth Fisher) website. It reads: This is another page that the DC editors changed: no halos or hearts around Batman, no matter how (disingenuously) contrite he is. In the final edition, the halo and heart in the center bottom frame have been excised.]