Support Group for the Recently Edited
Hi everyone, and welcome to this support group for people whose work has been edited by Sarah Scullin! I’m so glad we switched our meeting place from a regular bar to a juice bar. The saltiness of our tears should go really well with the sweetness of the juice.
As you all know, last week I was stressing out because I was almost ready to turn in a draft to Sarah. A few days after I finally got up the nerve to hit the “send” button, she responded to say that she’d begin working on it soon. Even though I knew what to expect, my heart dropped when the email notifications from Google Drive began to roll in, telling me that she was leaving comments on the draft. First six, then thirteen. I buried my phone in my sock drawer so I wouldn’t be able to hear it vibrate every time another comment rolled in, but I swear I could still hear it buzzing faintly and continuously as I hid in the bathroom.
The first comment at the very top read, “Hey, so right off the bat I want to say that I really liked this!” When I read those words, I knew that what followed would shred the already-tattered remains of my self-esteem.
In the dozens of comments that followed, she proceeded to take a sledgehammer to my essay. “This could be such a powerful point, but it gets lost.” “You can cut this paragraph - it doesn’t add much to the argument you’re making.” “Find a different word to explain this.” “I want to see how it would look if you took these paragraphs and turned them into your introduction.” “I’m not even sure what you’re arguing here.” “Could you make these sentences better?” And, most crushingly of all, a comment on what I’d thought was a searing indictment of the discipline as a whole: “lol”.
I hear what you’re all saying – if she hadn’t thought the article had potential, then she wouldn’t have bothered to leave so many comments. And I know in my heart that you’re right. As soon as the swelling in my eyes goes down from all of the crying, I’ll try to get back into it. And Jane, thanks for the warning to be careful not to “resolve” any of her comments in the Google doc. I hope that you can convince the Apple store not to charge you to replace your water-damaged keyboard.