Sometimes I Think I Should Have Been An Editor

I sure seem to get a lot of editing practice for someone who's never actually had that role in any professional capacity. In fact, I was never even the editor of a school newspaper, nor the person responsible for any official corporate newsletter. And yet I still find myself playing the part of editor on a regular basis.

I edit myself all the time, of course, because I tend to write a lot these days (see: this blog, and my various books). Vicki often asks me to proofread things that she's written, ranging from work-related specification documents to club newsletters or speeches. But I also find myself "faux-editing" articles that I read, sometimes up to the point of e-mailing the author(s) in case they have any interest in incorporating my corrections and/or suggestions. Then there was Agile guru Mike Cohn, who appeared to be extremely grateful for the feedback I provided him on a draft of his latest book, even going so far as to say that I was finding errors that everyone else had missed.

Today I spent a little time providing editorial suggestions to a student friend of mine who's preparing a speech on "brains in a vat", of all things! It's not exactly the sort of thing you'd necessarily expect to find me doing on a Sunday afternoon in April, and yet it felt natural enough to me.

I'm not sure I could ever have really made a career out of professional editing... but some days, I feel like I already have!