What Is A Book?
Editing a friend's book makes me question what it means to be a book.
I've said this before, I hate editing, but I volunteered to edit a friend's book. I wouldn't normally do this, and this is my first attempt to edit someone else's work. You may be wondering why I accepted this challenge. I learn a lot from this person, and thought I'd try to pay him back.
Be that as it may, I've always loved this person's writing style, but when I dove into his book I went about editing as if it were my book. I'm not a professional editor–I would think editors would be aware of this problem–I wasn't.
Let me sidetrack a bit. This person writes in a stream-of-consciousness manner. He thinks out loud on the page. Each paragraph is a sentence, a paragraph. There are breaks between thoughts. He talks directly to the reader. His word choices are casual, personal, and comforting. That's what I like about his writing and his style.
Back to my problem. I took to editing his book as if it were a work of fiction–it's not. Even though he teaches in the book, it's not even an educational book. But, I went in with the assumption he wanted it edited as if it were. That was my mistake, and I sincerely apologize for that.
I made suggestions and corrections to restructure certain things as I read. I should have merely fixed issues of grammar and spelling.
I learned of a couple important things. I'm not sure which one is more important.
First, I shouldn't edit someone else's work as if I had written it.
Second, what is a book?
A book can be a conversation. A book can be you talking to the reader as if the reader is a friend, and in the room with you.
It's a style I haven't seen before.
And, it's a style that I like.
We can always use more friends.
And, again, I apologize. Keep writing in the style you like or know how to. Don't change your style, or someone else's. Be you.
Word up!