Thanks for sharing this.

Hey there. Great question. It's totally possible to support yourself as an editor. I've done it, and so have other editors I know. However there are a few important things to consider before choosing editing as a career path.

I hope this hasn't been too discouraging. If you feel a true passion for editing and really enjoy the work, none of the above should dissuade you. However, if you think you might be happy in any number of occupations, I'd honestly advise you to explore other options. Choosing a career path at this point in history is a gamble no matter what, but the outlook for editors is especially grim.

If you'd like to work with writers and aren't attached to being an editor, there are a few jobs (still freelance) that I believe will survive the coming robot apocalypse. Do a little Google research about "book coaches," "writing coaches," or "book doulas." These are people who act primarily as emotional supporters and logistical helpers for writers who are trying to get their book published or self published. Some of them do actual editing, but many do not, and due to the therapeutic nature of their work I believe they will flourish longer than editors in the coming robot apocalypse.

If you do explore editing as a path, the further away you can lean from spelling and grammar (e.g. proofreader or copyeditor), the longer your skills will be useful when competing with robots. AI still struggles to offer the same kind of nuanced, story-level feedback that a human can give. (Speaking from experience here--I'm a developmental editor and have yet to see a dent in my workload because of robots.) They'll catch up eventually, but it could be a while, and as long as there are human readers, there will always be humans who are willing to pay for a human perspective on their writing. Human spell checkers maybe not so much.

Hope this helps!

Been thinking about this a lot lately... It's especially good advice for those of us that are terrible plotters. Just take it one step at a time.

A Word of Advice About Critique Groups, Beta Readers, and Other Peer-Based Feedback on Your Writing

In my time as a professional editor, I've had many writers come to me with stories they've been trying to improve based on suggestions from critique groups, beta readers, or other non-professional feedback sources (friends, family, etc.). The writers are often frustrated because they don't agree with the feedback, they can't make sense of the comments they've gotten, or they've tried their best to implement the suggestions but now they've made a big mess of things and don't know where to go from here.

If this happens to you, you're not alone. Here's the deal.

Readers and beginning writers are great at sniffing out problems, but they can be terrible at recommending solutions. For that reason, critique groups can be a disastrous place for beginning writers to get advice.

Here's a good metaphor. Imagine you don’t know the first thing about cars. Someone tells you, “There’s oil leaking onto the driveway. You should cover the car with a giant garbage bag.” Alarmed, you oblige, only to be told the next day that “now the car smells like burning plastic and I can’t see out the windows.”

A mechanic would’ve listened to the critic’s complaint and come up with their own solution to the leaking oil, ignoring the amateur’s ridiculous idea, because they know how to fix cars and can use their skills to investigate symptoms and find the correct solution.

Critique groups actually aren’t bad places for experienced writers, because they can listen to the criticism, interpret it, and come up with their own remedies to the problems readers are complaining about. Beginning writers, on the other hand, can end up digging themselves into a deeper hole.

There's a great Neil Gaiman quote about this very conundrum:

So what to do?

First, try to investigate the reader's complaint and come up with your own solution, instead of taking their solution to the problem. Sometimes, in the end, the reader's solution was exactly right, which is lovely, but don't count on it. Do your own detective work.

Second, take everything you hear with a huge grain of salt, and run the numbers. Are 9 out of 10 readers complaining about your rushed ending? It's probably worth investigating. Does nobody have an issue with your abrasive antagonist except your cozy mystery-loving uncle? Then you might not need to worry about it.

Third, give everything you hear a gut check. Does the criticism, while painful, ring true? Or does it seem really off-base to you? Let the feedback sit for a week or so while you chill out. You might find you're less sensitive and open to what's been said after a little more time has passed.

Lastly, consider getting professional feedback on your writing. Part of my job as an editor is to listen to previous feedback the writer has gotten, figure out whether the readers were tracking the scent of legitimate problems, and offer the writer more coherent solutions. Of course, some professional editors aren't very good at this, just like some non-professional readers are amazing at it, so hiring someone isn't a guarantee. But editors usually have more experience taking a look under the hood and giving writers sound mechanical advice about their work, rather than spouting ideas off the top of their head that only add to the writer's confusion.

Hope this helps!

The short answer is no. You can never read something you wrote with fresh eyes, unless a very long time has passed since you created it, or perhaps you were drunk at the time. Sad but true. Hope this helps.

Oh, man. I feel this so hard. Honestly, I still go through periods of depression for the exact same reason, and the only solution I've come up with is to KEEP WRITING. Personally, when I'm writing, I'm having a great time. It's only when I stop writing that I obsess about the pointlessness of writing and fall into a dark, nihilistic hole from which it is nearly impossible to emerge.

Also, it helps to figure out what you actually need, like, from life and other people. It's a hard pill to swallow, but you may not feel shitty primarily because no one is reading your writing. It may be that you feel shitty because you're lonely, isolated in your house all the time, not socializing enough, don't have people that you feel connected to or appreciated by, or have other personal issues that you're projecting onto your underappreciated writing. Not speaking from experience or anything. ;)

For me, though, the more I focus on my relationship to my writing (which includes writing what excites me and not what I think other people want to read), and the less I focus on everyone else's relationship to my writing, the happier I am.

Hope this helps.

You can burn your story slower than you think.

There's a lot of noise online about getting your reader's attention immediately, starting in medias res (in the middle of things), and the slippery science of "hooks." But readers are a lot more patient than we give them credit for.

Recently I've been re-reading the Harry Potter books. The Goblet of Fire is 734 pages long. When would you guess that Harry discovers his name has been entered into the goblet, and that he will have to participate in the tri-wizard tournament?

Based on the usual writing advice, I'd guess no more than a few chapters into the book, say, page 100? But Harry doesn't have his name called until page 271. And he doesn't start the first task until page 337. That's halfway through the book!

What happens in the meantime?

First, Rowling works in the background information we'll need to understand the ending. She shows us Wormtail's reunion with Voldemort, introduces Bagman and Crouch, lets us know how a Portkey works, and explains the unforgivable curses.

Second, she introduces a few mysteries--Harry's painful scar, the mystery of who set off the dark mark at the Quidditch World Cup, and, of course, repeated references to an unknown event that will be taking place at Hogwart's this year. These unanswered questions keep the reader curious as she takes her time in the first half of the book.

So she's not leaving us adrift in those first 300 pages. But she's also not hitting us over the head with some incredible event right away. The lesson? If you leave a trail of breadcrumbs, no matter how faint, readers will follow them to the end, and your story can burn delightfully slowly--no forced drama required.

Hope this helps!

I just rediscovered Cold Turkey Writer and it's changing my damn life. I've been using his internet blocker (Cold Turkey Blocker) for years, but somehow forgot that he has a distraction-free writing program, too. There's a free version, but I bought the Pro version for the extra features because it's only $9. (That's the one-time payment to own it forever, y'all - part of what makes this dude's stuff so cool is that he doesn't use the subscription model.) Also I just realized this sounds like an affiliate ad or something - it's not. I honestly just really love his software and think everyone should try it. Go get it for free and stop procrastinating!

Honestly, if you're having a hard time writing, try rearranging your furniture. I've found it to be a strangely effective way of shaking off a funk.

Something that's been knocking around in my head for a while: I think a lot of new writers get thrown off by their assumption that writing will be anything like reading. Reading is a dreamy, passive experience--scenes, dialogue, and description flow over you as you are taken under the writer's spell. Writing, on the other hand (with the exception, sometimes, of the first draft), is the laborious, almost mechanical-like task of putting narrative elements together so that the reader can lose themselves in your story. In short, reading and writing are very different experiences, and the assumption that they will be, or even should be, the same, is cause for much angst among new and experienced writers alike. It's a frustrating thing, because a love of reading is usually what gets people interested in writing in the first place. I've been writing for several decades and I still feel confounded by this clash--it's part of why I don't read much when I'm deep into my writing, and vice versa. And when I am writing, I constantly have to remind myself: Writing is not watching a magic show. Writing is figuring out how to smuggle the rabbit into the hat.