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Editing rant
May. 11th, 2006 02:05 pmIt's been twenty-five years since I read Robert Silverberg's book Dying Inside, but he certainly got one thing right -- writing tutors and ghostwriters get no f***ing respect. I spent most of last week with a "client" who wanted me to work indefinitely for free; I was stiffed today by someone who made an appointment and agreed to pay my standard rate but then cut a deal with her teacher, allowing her to dispense with my services entirely.
Beth and I have observed, over the past fifteen years, that no one wants to pay for editing. People want it for free. They perceive that they need it, for some undefinable reason, but they can't appreciate what goes into it and what a difference it makes -- otherwise they'd want to pay for it. So many times, I've turned unutterable crap into material that can actually be parsed by human beings, only to be cheated or grossly underpaid. In the future, I think this kind of work will disappear, as the number of people who can tell the difference between bad and good writing shrinks into insignificance. I've been managed by functionally illiterate people so many times in my jobs, and it's just going to get worse. So many g*******d years of education, and it's all for nothing. Why the f*** couldn't my parents have steered me into plumbing, instead? I'd be cleaning up people's crap for SIXTY DOLLARS AN HOUR, and they would PAY IT, or I would leave them KNEE-DEEP IN SEWAGE.
Now, there's a comforting fantasy.
Beth and I have observed, over the past fifteen years, that no one wants to pay for editing. People want it for free. They perceive that they need it, for some undefinable reason, but they can't appreciate what goes into it and what a difference it makes -- otherwise they'd want to pay for it. So many times, I've turned unutterable crap into material that can actually be parsed by human beings, only to be cheated or grossly underpaid. In the future, I think this kind of work will disappear, as the number of people who can tell the difference between bad and good writing shrinks into insignificance. I've been managed by functionally illiterate people so many times in my jobs, and it's just going to get worse. So many g*******d years of education, and it's all for nothing. Why the f*** couldn't my parents have steered me into plumbing, instead? I'd be cleaning up people's crap for SIXTY DOLLARS AN HOUR, and they would PAY IT, or I would leave them KNEE-DEEP IN SEWAGE.
Now, there's a comforting fantasy.
