Confessions of an Editor: The Terminator

Hey, new freelancers! I am going to tell you a secret near the end of this screed about the writing business. Nobody else will tell you what I’m going to share, or at the very least they won’t be as honest about it as I am. It’s blunt, it is not polite and it’s the whole truth. Read on…

I’ve had to discipline writers (and other creatives), I’ve had to dress them down, I’ve even had to roll their stupid hungover rear ends out of beds on at least one occasion to keep them from getting into a larger world of hurt up the editorial ladder. That last one was a mistake. I should have let that guy twist in the wind, but that was when I was a new editor and still a nice guy.

Hah.

The one thing I truly hate to do is fire people. A few years back, one unlucky gent tried to run game on me, but unfortunately for him, I myself had already run that game myself when I was a young punk. I gave him his shot to try and talk his way out of it without BSing me, but he didn’t take the opportunity. So I dumped him.

As an editor–and manager–you have to be very careful not to overreact when your people screw up, try to push your boundaries, test your limits and see how much they can get away with. It’s human nature to do all that, and a good editor will let somebody go up to a point because we ALL do it.

The day you, dear reader, find yourself in the editing chair, you have to learn your tolerance for all this stuff and decide what it is that you can’t take. Whatever your hot buttons are, learn them and sharpen your knives. You’re going to need them.

In every case I have ever called someone on the carpet or had to fire somebody, one thing stands above all else in why I decided to get rid of the dead weight.

They make me repeat myself.

If there is one thing I hate more than anything in the world, it’s somebody who I have offered a paycheck to forcing me to say the same shit over and over about basic matters. Here’s a simple one–I once told a staff of mine that nobody would be allowed to bill hours from home. We all had enjoyed the privilege, but it started getting abused–human nature–so I cut it off at the knees. There were protests and complaints, but I told them that until productivity got up to where it was supposed to be, no more hours from home.

Woe unto the person who tried to push my buttons on that one. I had to repeat myself more than once, so I did what I had to do. First, I got me some backup and hired a couple of part-timers, which frankly freaked the hell out of the people who were most directly affected by my “we do our work at work” policy. They thought they were ALL getting fired.

Only the person who made me reiterate my policy about doing our work at work got the axe in the end but I was pleased that I caused a minor panic by the simple act of sticking to my guns about my own policies.

In another situation I kept telling a creative type to stop doing one set of mistakes and start doing a different set of activities. But they couldn’t seem to remember longer than a day and a half what it was I had told them to stop doing and start doing. There I was, the editor, having to repeat myself again. About every day and a half. One morning, before I had a chance to drink a caffeinated beverage, I ran across the same stupid crap I had just repeated myself about in writing, so that was that. Goodbye.

Hey, new writers–I am going to tell you the secret now.

Editors are former fulltime writers. We still write, but many of us are more occupied with the work of other writers than our own. This makes us a little crazy. What is the secret? Get ready. Sit down, loosen your tie and take off your shoes. Get ready. Here it comes:

The writing business is NOT fair. It is populated by a variety of great people, sick freaks, and bitter writers who thought they’d be Hemmingway or Faulkner by now. And you know what? They–WE–do NOT CARE about FAIR. We don’t care about being nice, we don’t care about your feelings and we certainly don’t give a crap that we might have HURT THEM because we looked out for our own bottom line. If you lose a gig or get fired in this business there are only THREE REASONS:

1. You aren’t quite right for the gig for reasons that have nothing to do with your skill or talent.

2. The editor just plain doesn’t like you.

3. YOU SUCK.

A full 50% of the time at the very very least, #3 is the overriding factor in all firing in the editorial business. At least in my experience. The other part of THE SECRET here is that an editor is under a great deal of pressure to succeed. As a writer, if you can’t help the editor relieve that pressure, you are USELESS.

It ain’t fair, but that is HOW THIS GAME IS PLAYED. If you need to have a cry in the corner over that fact of life, you need to stop trying to write for money. It is a BAD MEAN WORLD out there and I, as an editor, am PART OF THE PROBLEM. One day you might be too. But only if you develop a big callous where your tender feelings used to be and plow in full steam ahead. Damn the torpedoes! That’s the only attitude that matters in this game.