Okay. You know what. Dig in. We're going to do a big talk about editing.

There is proofing -- making sure the copy is clean and presented correctly before publication. Finding and fixing errors.

There are line edits -- reworking individual lines of copy to be more focused, punchier, etc.

Then there are Developmental Edits. That's the real shit.

All three are crucial. You want cleanly, precisely presented copy. You want your individual hits to land strong. But before you can get there... You have to make sure your very ideas are formed fully, strongly, and coherently (and appropriately for the intended audience).

My last piece for Waypoint had a 700 word passage about staring at the Comcast Tower in the rain. Rob Zacny and I talked about it and killed it. I needed to write it to get to the meat of my draft, and we found space for it to work, but after discussion, it was better gone.

If you read carefully, you can see why I put it into the piece originally, and the structures where we found more purposeful, more impactful, and more textually relevant ways to express those ideas than that passage did alone. We spent two days on that piece over discord.

Working with Austin, he liked to play alone at first. Building an entire concept of the piece in his head. Moving things around. Resetting. Trying to understand not just what I wrote, but what I needed and really was trying to write - and how to best package that for the readers.

After all that time sitting and tinkering with the piece and coming to understand it, we'd talk. We'd go over notes he left for himself, the notes for me, we'd ask questions and float ideas. Then we'd really roll up our sleeves and plunge in to the reconstruction.

And a lot of times, before any of this...

My partner would spend DAYS listening to me ramble about my pieces, challenging my ideas, feeding me with questions and lines of thought I hadn't considered, or abandoned too early. Talking earnestly with me before a draft even existed.

And then, if my editors are wondering why I always submit such clean copy, they would take first and second cracks at my drafts. They'd make notes, suggest cuts and additions, call me on needless bullshit. And we'd talk more before and during revision.

And even before that! I'd do draft after draft and throw whole pages out and excise things I wrote but didn't like or didn't believe or think worked or were better suited elsewhere. I'd go on walks, make scattered draftlets and partial essays in my phone. I'd dialogue to myself.

Because if you REALLY want to write ANYTHING well you have to love editing. It has to be a craft you take on as part of your writing process, alone and with official editors. And to do that you have to understand what editing is -- it is a conversation, an ongoing relationship.

I don't think there isn't a single section here where I don't mention "and then we talked" because that is at the heart of editing. Whether you do things in tandem or separately, alone or with an editor -- you must dialogue. With yourself, the work, your material, your editor.