Since Barry hasn't been able to come up with anything substantial for me to respond to with my last post this week, CORRECTING the mistakes in this one will have to do.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > "All editors are failed authors." - Samuel Johnson > > "Every editor should have a pimp for a brother, so he can > have someone to look up to." - H.L. Mencken According to Barry, all I do as an editor is correct misspellings. If that's the case, it doesn't really seem as though these quotes would be applicable to me, although Barry clearly intends them as such. Looks like he lost track of the case he was trying to make again. Am I a bad high-level editor, or just a CORRECTOR of spelling? (Note that Barry has no idea *whatsoever* of the type or quality of editing I do.) The second quote, BTW, is usually attributed to author Gene Fowler, not Mencken. Mencken himself was an editor of some note, of course, in addition to being a writer. In respose to the Johnson quote, T.S. Eliot observed: "I suppose some editors are failed writers - but so are most writers." (Say, Barry, how's that novel coming?) And John Updike said of editors: "A good editor is one who encourages a writer to write his best. Being an editor is a kind of selfless thing--again and again your own wisdom and insight are absorbed invisibly by the author, who then signs his name." Finally, Barry also got a little confused with the chicken cartoon. The editor who rejected the kidney donated by the chicken is what's called an acquisitions editor, somebody who works for a publisher to evaluate manuscripts for possible purchase. I'm a freelance editor who works with authors to help them write their best, just as Updike describes. > [http://www.savagechickens.com/images/chickeneditor.jpg] Oh, well, maybe Barry will do better this coming week.
