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THE RECKLESS WRITER
How You Learn More From Teaching, Editing, and Selling Than You Do From Writing
You must explore multiple vantage points in order to achieve a complete perspective
I remember my first editing job. I was still in the formative years of my writing journey, and I hadn’t yet become numb to the sting of rejection. I resented that nothing I submitted ever seemed to receive a fair look. When I landed an editing position, I felt a surge of power.
“Thanks to me, writers will finally have access to an editor who actually knows what he is doing! I’ll have the whole writing market whipped into shape in sort order!” I was positively delighted as I sat down at my desk, cracked my knuckles and began scrolling through my work inbox.
Ten minutes later, I’d learned more about writing than I had in a year of freelancing. I’d also been awakened to the absurdity of my assumptions. Not only were the vast majority of the submissions unworthy of publication, they all repeated the same mistakes that I knew to be present in my own work.
I realized that when you only read your own writing, it’s easy to overlook the negative impact of certain lazy practices. A popular image or a common cliché doesn’t raise a red flag when you…
