Editor!

that's it. i was obviously meant to be an editor. mainly because I LOVE it! i mean, i've never done it full time so i didn't know how much. i am predicting a steady hand and a steadier mind if i can keep this job (temp to perm until they decide they love me. and these people are careful for good reason). i may even go so far as to predict the end of the line for the bi-polar express. but i should be quiet about that.

when i was a teenager, i read the letters section of rolling stone and star hits* voraciously. i loved it when the editor intervened and signed each comment "– ed." when my cat Ed was born in 1985, sure i named him after a song my future 1st husband (but-then-not-even-friend) wrote, "Hello, My Name Is Ed"...but after that charm wore off, i pretended i named him –ed., short for Editor. i walked around yelling, "Editor!" besides i was in love with magazines and i dreamed of being an editor some day.

too bad i hate school and couldn't complete my degree! NOT.

i planned to be a published (novel) author or a famous artist anyway, and even though neither has happened yet, i was right about not needing that particular piece of paper. (and while i hate to stick it to my dad, who said i'd go nowhere without a degree, i will say this... "Stick It Dad!")

it's been an unsettling week. monday was my first day on the job – and i only interviewed for it last friday, so that was fast. linda blair head-spinin'-round-fast. my first day was weird, but whose isn't? second day, i didn't go, i had an interview with another major retail company just a tad north.

third day back in corte madera: i'm feeling a big PHEW pass through my body and brain. i'm feeling myself start to "get it." "get" the organization that feels like a foreign langauge until it becomes the only language. i start to "get" the files, the servers, what i'm allowed to mark up and not mark up, their specific style guide...etc. fourth day, today: i tackle a really difficult catalog spread. there are tons of kids clothes on it, and they're all very similar but different, even inside their own collections. i'm totally unfettered. i just plow. i show my work to the copy manager (and i mean "show my work" just like we were told to do in high school algebra).
(side note: that's a weird word, "algebra." what kind of word is that??) i hand her a spread printout that is so marked up with red, it's got pink behind it, which is other red that i've erased with the irreplaceable and utterly necessary (tho' previously despised) erasable ink pen. she sees the marked-up spread and says, OH MY GOD. because it's a mess. but it's work, and i know what i'm doing, and i can't believe it.

the relief is palpable. i left work today (after being told that i was performing very impressively), with that happy feeling. you know, like a bubble in my soul that's working it's way out to create laughter and excitement. i have only felt that once in the last two years (wedding). and maybe one other time during Friday Night Dance Party (to be discussed in a later post.)

before today i weighed very carefully the literal differences between writing and editing, and a million displaced thoughts about that. i finally landed on something interesting: writing is personal. it's emotional. it's the Bi-Polar Express's Grand Central Station. "will i be able to write this. why can't i write this. oh, i can write this! i love writing this! but will my boss love this. i can't tell. you never know. oh, she liked it but changed a bunch of stuff. i can't believe i can't do this on my own. how did i not nail it AGAIN?! am i supposed to be nailing it? why can't i do it perfectly? does she think i'm stupid. am i stupid?!" and blah blah blahdedly blah...wah wah wah.

editing is not emotional. editing is the rules. it's the facts, ma'am. you can't argue with it. even though each company/publication has a "style guide" that addresses the nebulous, or optional parts of the chicago manual of style, that's something learn-able, just like the regular rules, and something you're not expected to know until you get there. what's more? what's the real key? besides knowing what i'm doing? I CARE. i fucking care if a page in a magazine, catalog, newspaper...whatever...is right. is everything that's printed correct in every way? if it's not, i'm very upset. THAT is a feeling about work i haven't felt since i was 24 and editing the music section of siren magazine – the lucky break that didn't really pay and then disappeared.

*star hits. what a great mag. sarcastic as hell. it's not even google-able, it's so old. probably folded in 1986. i read it starting in '83. wish i could remember where it was published. star hits was a music magazine that featured lyrics to all your favorite new wave songs. i still have one copy somewhere. probably in a box with my other magazines from 1984.


scan above courtesy of another big star hits geek.