If You are a Writer You are also an Editor

Often, when I edit any piece of writing, whether it is mine, or, moreso, that of another writer, I find that much of the work that has been neglected is to do with how the writer failed to practise effective sentence control, that deliberate process where nothing is intrinsic, but where much, if not everything, depends on syntactic control, sometimes linguistic risk, that the writer is willing to unfurl. All sentences, especially ones like my introductory one here, can be controlled; the writer has to make choices about how to express ideas: don't let anyone tell you that we are controlled by the sentence, that the sentence is a gift that comes fully formed from some sentence storehouse...we craft these things, we make them work, we knit words, we replace them, we sequence elements of sentences, we pile segment upon segment of lexical and syntactic matter to create prosaic style and semantic sinews. So, on and on, we edit. There are moments when words, phrases, and clauses fail us, but we refuse to fail due to the control we have over these things, and as long as we are not easily satisfied by those early convulsions, or sometimes twitches, of matter on the page or on the screen, early structures that convey our ideas or our stories, and if we come to the word with a healthy level of skepticism, we may begin to reach a useful stage of effective editing, particularly of our own works.

So I say, edit on.