Five Stages of Editing Response

Research has demonstrated that there are specific stages of grief, though Google is undecided on whether there are five or seven of those stages.

I think there are stages to editing feedback. You send work out to an editor because, lets face it - self editing is a joke. The intent is for the editor to, um, edit it and point out areas that need improvement, make suggestions, identify weaknesses. But while that's the point I think it's every author's hope that that editor will actually write back "Holy Cannoli this piece is perfect! Don't change a thing!" 

I got my edits for #GoodDay back yesterday. Here are the stages of reaction to editing feedback:

1. Impatience - happens throughout the period of time in which the editor has your work. Symptoms include poorly hidden requests for updates ("What have you been doing today?") and flat out demands for reassurance ("It doesn't suck too bad does it?"). This stage lasts exactly until the point of the manuscripts return at which point the writer zaps directly into the second stage.

2. Indifference and Procrastination - even though you've spent the last several weeks thinking about nothing but the document, once the document arrives you immediately have forty seven other things you have to do right then and there is no opportunity to open the document and look at the editing. This stage can be fleeting or go on for hours.

3. Holy F#%k, I'm F*#ked - once the document is open, regardless of the level of editing, any and all suggestions look like monumental obstacles of penance and dire punishment. The thought of starting any of them is so impossibly daunting that the logical course of action is to forget the whole f@&king thing, crawl into a hole somewhere and curl up in the fetal position because you're not worth anything and no one likes you and who the hell said you could write anything anyway?

4. Suck it up, Buttercup - depending on the depth of the hole dug in stage three, this stage may take a very long time. Rereading and rereading and rereading the edit suggestions bangs them down from a vile dream destroying monster to a series of annoying, gnats. Giant gnats with disgusting breath and sharp teeth, but gnats just the same. During this period the writer climbs out of the hole and puts her tears away and tries to act like an adult by organizing and addressing each gnat as it presents itself.

5. Reverence - this stage comes on slowly, gnat by gnat, as the writer realizes (or probably rerealizes, that doubting nutter) that the editor is in fact a genius and each suggestion is a tiny angel sent from the beyond to lift the story to a new level of brilliance. (This is also the stage in which the writer feels slightly guilty for putting their own name on the cover and not the editor's - but that's a whole other series of confidence gymnastics)

I'm editing #GoodDay today and am trying to dig out of the hole into the field of buttercups. Think of me and send me healing vibes.

N