Editorial Notes = clarifying information, additional insight, annotations

Hiya Reader,

I'm beyond excited to report that I will be squirreled away as a resident writing fellow for the next few weeks. This honor is awarding me the unimaginable luxury of time to consciously focus on absolutely nothing at all except my writing.

I'm determined to make the most of my days, with major progress on the memoir I've been slaving over for six looooooooong years (my daughter would write this as longgggggggg) and counting.

The manuscript is about 75% complete. At the very least, I will not allow myself to return to the world without having at least drafted the remaining quarter and defined the structural organization. Obviously, I hope to be able to do more, but these are the twin goals.

All this to say, I'll be taking a hiatus from Editorial Notes until I return. But I've selected favorite past issues from the archive to land in your inbox at the usual Wednesday time while I'm out of pocket.

See you on the flippy flop.
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Example of the Week

Sometimes this is a good example—or a great one. Sometimes this is a bad example—or just a funny blooper. Sometimes a combination. You never know.

Time for another edition of Helene's Pet Peeves!

This week's focus is on the following:

"Most of the food is heated up by microwave, which begs the question: why have a cooktop at all?"

"She hadn't received a reply in weeks, which begs the question: was he truly that busy or just ghosting her?"

"My dog will only sleep on my couch, which begs the question: why do we even own a dog bed?"

These are not examples of begging the question!

But these are:

"Most food is heated up by microwave so a cooktop is unnecessary."

"He's obviously ghosting her because he hasn't replied in weeks."

"Because my dog only sleeps on the couch, it's pointless for Rover to have a separate bed."

The term "begging the question" is a logical fallacy (i.e. based on invalid or irrelevant reasoning) that assumes an answer within the question. It's circular reasoning, a snake chasing its own hind quarters.

Not all logical fallacies are false statements, by the way. The term simply means that conclusions are presented without any evidence beyond the statement itself.

It's similar to a rhetorical question, which is a question that does not really ask for an answer but instead makes a dramatic statement or point in the form of a question.(i.e. "Who is the scoundrel who gobbled down the last of the peanut butter oatmeal cookies?" when only one other person had access to the platter.) but in a separate category.

The bad usage examples above occur when people mean to say something like "which raises the question," or "this brings up a point," or "I wonder why." They aren't really on hands and knees begging for a question or an answer.

TLDR; if you use the phrase "which begs the question," you're using it wrong.

Actionable Tip of the Week

A trick to add to your self-editing toolbox right now!

We humans are creatures of habit. That's good, most of the time, like when we go to the gym regularly or get up at the same time every day or refrain from dangling raw chicken over alligator-infested waters.

But like all things human, there's a negative flip side to habits: getting in a rut. The phrase, perhaps unsurprisingly, originates from the 1800s when our ancestors traveled in covered wagons. Over time, the repeated weight of so many wagon wheels covering the same ground dug grooves in the dirt and mud. Getting stuck in a rut led to an unasked for inertia, one in which it proved difficult if not impossible to regain momentum.

Take our writing habits, for example.

Writing in the same place at the same time and with the same tools, beverages, and environmental sounds do much to build consistency. And consistency, friends, is the chief goal of a writing habit in the first place.

Ah, but the benefit of such a habit flies right out the window and off with the breeze when we are struggling to self-edit. Revising under the same circumstances in which we created the thing in the first place can prove a hindrance to (or total impasse in front of) the mental shape shift that focused and fruitful editing requires.

Next time you sit down (or stand up!) to edit, take your work to a different place (literal and figurative) from the one in which you compose. You can choose quiet (library), public (coffee shop), or distracted (while in a car or subway). Even going to a different room in your home works. If you normally play background music, turn it off or switch up the genre.

By changing our environment, even subtly, our brains understand that we're doing something different.

Reader Question of the Week

Alice wrote: I'm generally confident in my ability to self-edit if the piece is short-medium length. But when I'm working on longer pieces, I feel completely lost. It's discouraging. How am I supposed to tackle editing long and/or complex writing? It's hard to keep it all straight in my head, and I get so frustrated I sometimes lose all interest in the writing.

Alice! I understand exactly where you're coming from, especially as I'm currently working through edits and revisions on my own manuscript. My draft is unusually structured, which is to say it isn't truly chronological or linear, which makes the task particularly daunting in terms of the big picture.

Even on work that's more straightforward, the editing process of longer pieces can feel much like detangling a fine-strand necklace that spent years at the bottom of a jewelry box. It’s knotted, full of stops and starts. Just when you make some progress, another segment snarls itself or catches on your fingernail and down it goes.

Your question is twofold.

For the editing itself, it's not going to surprise you that my best suggestion is to break the editing tasks down to manageable chunks. If you try to unknot the chain with one savage pull, things will end up far worse than before.

Make a list of the editing passes you need to make: from plot/story/narrative to character, structure to chronology, scene, summary. Passages to paragraphs to sentences to word choice, etc., etc., etc. All writers have their unique writing...quirks, and while voice and style are essential aspects to play up, tics are equally essential to pare down or eliminate. Not to mention basic copy editing and all the rest!

Once you have your initial list (initial because you'll find more to add as you go) rewrite it in priority order and tackle the work systematically and strategically, one tangle at a time.

The second part has to do with losing interest — but let's be clear that when we talk about writing, we really mean all of the steps: drafting, creating, imagining...AND editing. If you are losing interest in any of the tasks, switch to something else. That counts as "taking a break." If you believe you're truly losing interest in the work itself, then it might be time to put that project in a literal or figurative drawer for a bit and work on a different project — writing or not-writing.

A universal continuum exists between viewing everything we write as absolutely brilliant and gorgeous and perfectly unblemished....and utter crap, worthless trash. Neither end of the spectrum is the truth. So you might need to wait it out.

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Link of the Week

Check out Marginalia, an Internet search engine that specifically and deliberately ignores all the dreck. SEO begone! You'll find sparkling gems, curious oddities, and hyper-niche stuff here in the non-commercial web.

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I ❤️ Hearing from You!

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Thanks for reading!

~Helene, your writing sherpa

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