Hamster Dance

I've been doing a lot of editing lately. A lot of editing. Like a hamster on a little exercise wheel, madly moving words around into the proper order just in time for more out-of-order words to be rearranged.

The designers who write the original words for these projects think they are in good order when they send them in to a publisher, and they probably are. But each publisher likes to use particular words and to have them lined up in a set order. For instance, some publishers like the word "string" while others like "pick up". And no publisher can stand a passive voice, so each and every sentence must be changed to start with a strong verb.

At a certain point in the editing process I can't see the words anymore. They swim like little minnows and I can't keep track of which one started where. So I go outside for a walk or call my sister or flip on HGTV for a minute while I eat some chocolate. Then I sit down and start again. It's a crazy process, but the feeling of shaping a difficult project into clean, understandable terms is pretty darn gratifying.