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Inner Editor: My Big Editing Adventure

July 30, 2019 by Virginia Durksen | 14 Comments on Inner Editor: My Big Editing Adventure

The big adventure isn’t always in the story. Sometimes it’s in the editing. A few years ago I spent the morning with two classes of junior high students to talk about how to give editing feedback to each other. They were writing adventure stories. Part of their assignment was to find a magazine photo on […]

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Interview With Dr. Suzanne M. Steele

November 27, 2018 by Virginia Durksen | 3 Comments on Interview With Dr. Suzanne M. Steele

Part 3: Suzanne Steele, Librettist and Multimedia Artist In 2012, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and One Yellow Rabbit theatre company commissioned Suzanne Steele to write the libretto for Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation. Suzanne’s work with composer Jeffrey Ryan is one example of the collaboration she has pursued in her career, between artists and across […]

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Interview with Dr. Suzanne M. Steele

October 9, 2018 by Virginia Durksen | 4 Comments on Interview with Dr. Suzanne M. Steele

Part 2: Suzanne Steele, War Poet It takes courage to be a poet, although not the kind of courage needed on literal fields of battle. For two years (2008–10), Suzanne Steele was Canada’s “war poet,” the first official Canadian war artist poet to be embedded with a Canadian battlegroup — Task Force 3-09 (Afghanistan) — […]

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Interview With Dr. Suzanne M. Steele

September 4, 2018 by Virginia Durksen | 9 Comments on Interview With Dr. Suzanne M. Steele

Part 1: Dr. Suzanne M. Steele, scholar and editor Dr. Suzanne Steele has built her career on words as a librarian, a war poet, a librettist, a teacher and an academic editor working with ESL writers who are often translating their ideas across cultures as well as languages. Virginia Durksen is the editor for Suzanne’s […]

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The Inner Editor: Please Allow Me To … Interrupt You

February 6, 2018 by Virginia Durksen | 12 Comments on The Inner Editor: Please Allow Me To … Interrupt You

On Facebook recently, a colleague reported being the victim of a phone hijacking. You might recognize the feeling. A potential client calls to ask about editing services and then spends the better part of an hour telling her story with barely a breath between sentences, leaving you with no room to speak. There it is. […]

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Revisiting the Inner Editor: December Is the Cruellest Month

November 28, 2017 by Virginia Durksen | 4 Comments on Revisiting the Inner Editor: December Is the Cruellest Month

Last year, we published this post on the freelancer’s holiday blues. This year, we’re following up with our readers. Have you implemented any of these ideas? Do you have other tips for avoiding the holiday lull? When projects disappear in other months, the freelance editor adjusts her schedule and cash flow projections and stoically reminds […]

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Inner Editor: Tasks Without Edges

February 28, 2017 by Virginia Durksen | 5 Comments on Inner Editor: Tasks Without Edges

As the oft-paraphrased Leonardo da Vinci would have it, art [or poetry or writing or editing] is never finished, only abandoned. Writing is like a teenager. Eventually you have to send it out into the world to fend for itself. (Or should I say it’s like a young adult? Most North Americans freak out at […]

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The Inner Editor: December Is the Cruellest — and Shortest — Month

December 20, 2016 by Virginia Durksen | 11 Comments on The Inner Editor: December Is the Cruellest — and Shortest — Month

The little knot forming in your chest isn’t a reaction to the cold weather. It’s the freelance editor’s anxiety kicking in right on schedule, just before the holidays. When projects disappear in other months, the freelance editor adjusts her schedule and cash flow projections and stoically reminds herself that this month’s famine may well be […]

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The Inner Editor: Introvert, Know Thyself

November 8, 2016 by Virginia Durksen | 3 Comments on The Inner Editor: Introvert, Know Thyself

Just after parlour games went out of fashion, but before Facebook, a self-employed editor might have used her idle hours for professional developments and introspections of various sorts. In particular, one such editor might have noticed that her clients had entire Human Resources departments dedicated to circulating questionnaires to help people realize who they were […]

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The Inner Editor: The Voice and Its Vices

September 27, 2016 by Virginia Durksen | 3 Comments on The Inner Editor: The Voice and Its Vices

When editors talk about a writer’s “voice,” we usually mean something like a writer’s style or tone or stance. Even if you’ve never given much thought to this term, you’ll know what “voice” means if you can recall a moment when you, as a child, first heard “Don’t use that voice with me, young lady.” It’s a command […]

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The Inner Editor: Friends, Readers, Editors

June 23, 2015 by Virginia Durksen | 4 Comments on The Inner Editor: Friends, Readers, Editors

Being an editor is easy compared to being a friend. Confusing the two is a sure path to flawed editing and fraught friendships. So what should you do if a friend or family member asks for your opinion of their latest novel? Or — a more daunting and delicate task — to read the stack […]

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Myth: Editors Read With Their Eyes

April 7, 2015 by Virginia Durksen | 12 Comments on Myth: Editors Read With Their Eyes

If there’s a cliché image for our profession, it’s eyeglasses. Editors and librarians, it seems, should always have a pair handy, preferably hanging from a chain around the neck. We earn this image, as we earn our reputation, when we limit editing to what the eye sees. Editing is not just an eye thing. It’s […]

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Myth: It Takes a Certain Personality to Become an Editor

March 25, 2014 by Virginia Durksen | 4 Comments on Myth: It Takes a Certain Personality to Become an Editor

Any profession draws certain personality types to it more readily than others. But just as there’s no single lawyer or doctor or teacher type, there’s more than one editor type. Editors come in all sorts. Editors can be achievers, caretakers, managers, control freaks, idea generators, intellectuals, entrepreneurs — and are often a bit of everything […]

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Myth: The Rules are the Rules (Not)

November 26, 2013 by Virginia Durksen | 2 Comments on Myth: The Rules are the Rules (Not)

Some rules are rules. Not meant to be broken. Others are more like etiquette or Sunday best. When was the last time you wore Sunday best? That’s because society has changed in the half-century (or however long) you’ve been alive. When was the last time you split an infinitive, misspoke “you and I” for “you […]

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Myth: Perfection is the Goal

October 16, 2013 by Virginia Durksen | Leave a Comment

We’ve all had that moment of pride when the book or the brochure arrives, still smelling of ink. And the next moment, when we open the book to discover the glaring error that has somehow managed to survive our eagle-eyed hunt, to live forever as testament to our failure. That moment is sent by the […]

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Myth: Consistency matters consistently

September 10, 2013 by Virginia Durksen | Leave a Comment

And so begins a mini-series, a sub-set of The Inner Editor by Virginia Durksen. Each “mythbuster” explores an assumption commonly made about editors or editing and offers a new perspective on that assumption. Consistency matters when you’re adding a column of numbers. Consistency also matters when you’re training your dog (or your kids, for that […]

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THE INNER EDITOR: The Useful Conversation

July 24, 2013 by Virginia Durksen | 2 Comments on THE INNER EDITOR: The Useful Conversation

The desciptive-prescriptive war is over. Long live the conversation. In the past month, my colleagues have been chatting about an article called Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism: War is Over (if you want it). Its heading perpetuates a flawed premise, but the author offers good evidence that prescriptive and descriptive can both be thoughtful approaches to the […]

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THE INNER EDITOR: Reflections on Editing as Mindful Practice

January 8, 2013 by Virginia Durksen | 1 Comment on THE INNER EDITOR: Reflections on Editing as Mindful Practice

  As a young reader, I liked writers who tactfully addressed the “gentle reader.” Perhaps I enjoyed the ironic wink suggesting that writer and reader are both in on creating the story. Indirectly or directly, good writers invite the reader to trust the unfolding tale, just as they find a way to signal their trust […]

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