A Painful Birth Story

Real artists ship.
This Steve Jobs quote is a favorite of my husband’s, and as I sit here facing a blank computer screen it’s playing in a continuous loop in my head. “Real artists ship.” “Real artists ship.”

To my guilty conscience, I  suppose it means I should scrap perfectionist (er, procrastinator?) tendencies and launch this blog already.

But then again, I’ve never claimed to be an artist.

After a career spent writing — communication plans, press releases, Web content, newsletters, articles, annual reports, speeches, etc. — when asked what I do for a living, it’s only natural to say “I write.”

But what I also do — what I prefer to do, actually — is help make writing more understandable, consistent or concise. And if I’m really lucky, more interesting and informative. In other words, I edit.

So why ‘Edit by Design’?

While no one (me included) really enjoys being edited , it’s hard to argue that a good editor can’t make something markedly (or at least marginally) better.

I’m also fascinated by the editing process — both what people edit and how. Not just their writing, but how they tweak their lives, their recipes, their relationships, their stuff — to improve them. That’s what I hope to explore in the “edit” part of this blog.

And since many of the things we edit are important enough that they require some finesse to ensure we don’t unnecessarily hurt those we care about (including ourselves) in the process, that’s the “by design” part.

Consider this blog officially shipped.

Photo credit: C. Gilliam