How obsessed am I with editing? I read The Elements of Style for pleasure. I collect quotes about editors. Mark Twain: “The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” Beatrix Potter: “The shorter and the plainer the better.”
In my experience, nearly every work can benefit from a skillful editor. Sometimes the edits are fundamental because, as Hemingway said, “the first draft of anything is shit.” Sometimes you need a copyeditor, to fix awkward phrasing or eliminate repetition. And then there’s the proofreader, who must work carefully “to be sure you don’t anything out.”
I do all of those tasks and more. In three years as senior review editor of an online publication, I edited over 300 book reviews for organization, clarity, and style. As a lawyer I routinely helped engineers, economists, policy analysts, and others to express their ideas. For ten years after I left my first job, I regularly fielded calls seeking grammatical and stylistic advice from my former boss.
French mathematician Blaise Pascal once said, “The letter I have written today is longer than usual because I lacked the time to make it shorter.” I have the time and the ability. Contact me for a free consultation.