by Amanda Smyth

No promises on part 2.

I’ll be the first to admit it. I am a lazy editor.

I DO enjoy reading the work my freelancers submit. Some days, my job is the best job in the world. I can kick back and read great articles from great writers on a variety of topics. I learn new and wonderful things from their articles and I bask in the warm glow of their musings. So what makes me a lazy editor? Well, the part that’s the most grueling is the actual editing.

And frankly, I’d rather just skim.

Audience: “WHAT? THE HORROR! But you’re an EDITOR! Don’t you love dissecting, cutting, pasting and mutilating our work?”

Me: “Not really. I’d much rather put my feet up and surf the interweb for funny pictures of cats.”

*Audience lights torches

I hate to be the one to ruin it for all of the lazy editors in hiding, (you know who you are) but nothing is more loathsome, tedious and grueling than having to go through an article word by word, comma by comma and space by space, tearing things apart and fitting them back together in some new and wonderful Frankenstein version of its original form.

Do I do this? Yes. Do I enjoy it? No. (There are cats wearing boots in that minimized window over there just waiting for me to put the finishing touches on these pieced-together articles. Grumbles!)

My absolute favorite go-to writers (Hello, Freelance-Zone!) are the ones who understand how deeply lazy I am and don’t mind. They turn in great articles full of compelling information and clean copy and they follow directions from the client to a T. They turn in work that I can sit back and enjoy reading rather than work I have to take a chainsaw to. And for that, I am able to turn their work in to clients earlier than anticipated. Happy clients pay bills faster, which means my freelancers get paid faster, and I am thus left in peace to enjoy my “Cats Wearing Argyle Sweaters” blog. Everyone is happy.

And so I say to you, please do not stand in the way of my continued laziness. Grueling work makes me mad, and you don’t want to see me mad!