Page 99 - Student: dazed And Confused

not solve by ourselves which made me proud because we are all mature enough to take on
this responsibility. I just wish we had had a better communication system and had
therefore not had to wait to the last minute to find out people had been unable to do their
parts.

I don't think I would like to edit other peoples' work again because it's far too nerve-
wracking to have to keep wondering how these people are going to react to what you're
doing. It also rips constantly at your self esteem. Firstly, you end up feeling really, really
crap about having to tell a writer that their work is full of mistakes and that it needs a total
rewrite before it's acceptable. I guess tact must be a pre-requisite for that kind of job. The

second way it hurts your self-esteem is when you have to tell some-one about the
corrections and the start digging their heels in and refusing to have any changes, so then
you wonder what all the bother of editing was for if they didn't want to know. And then you
have to reject the work and hate yourself for destroying a fellow writer's dream. Real
editors must hearts and nerves of steel. Editing my own work is heart-rending enough
thank you. See, in my work and stuff I have read from other people, there are some brilliant
bits that might not fit in the story but are so fabulously well written that it's a crying shame
to get rid of them. However, editing is a brutal job and you have to sacrifice some really
outstanding writing to make way for the most important bit - the story.

All in all, for a first go, I think my group have done quite well in trying to bring this
project to life. I'm sure we have not been the most organised team ever, but everyone did
some work towards the end product and it all got finished on time.

Editing

n : putting something (as a literary work or a legislative bill) into acceptable form

Reference list

Lemonade - Tamara Young

Christmas lights: Haughton - Susan Smith

Garden of tranquillity - Ann Cullen

The beauty of betrayal - Jan Summerfield

The weighting game - Wendy Maddocks