This is how I feel sometimes when I get feedback from my editors.

[Cynus]

[Lugnutz]

I do it easy. If you don't like what's there, don't read it.

[Guest Dabeagle]

Judging from the completed work, I sense some exaggeration.

[Cole Parker]

From the other side, when I edit and mark things up, I always feel contrite, sending back something with lots of red inserted in it. I know I have a thin skin and am sensitive to criticism. So I feel for the writer getting something back who probably thought there'd be one or two typos caught and that would be that.

I do emphasize that what I mark are suggestions, and that the writer has to make the final decision of what to change and how to change it. And I console myself with the fact that they asked for the piece to be vetted. But I still often feel badly about it.

C

[Cynus]

I don't really feel this way, well, not entirely. I've slowly been training myself to like criticism, and this comic makes me laugh when I think about it. Criticism, depending on how much there is, either motivates me or drives me insane and then motivates me.

But maybe I'm just a masochist.

[Lugnutz]

I recently got critisim on a story I was working on from a fellow author but decided to shelve it for the time being. My mind is everywhere but the writing lately to make it worthwhile.

[Graeme]

From the other side, when I edit and mark things up, I always feel contrite, sending back something with lots of red inserted in it. I know I have a thin skin and am sensitive to criticism. So I feel for the writer getting something back who probably thought there'd be one or two typos caught and that would be that.

I do emphasize that what I mark are suggestions, and that the writer has to make the final decision of what to change and how to change it. And I console myself with the fact that they asked for the piece to be vetted. But I still often feel badly about it.

C

When Aaron and Rain from The Mail Crew were editing for me, I never, repeat never, got a story or chapter back without at least one correction on every page. I'm still kicking myself for the one time that I could've reached the milestone of a page without corrections if I'd just used a possessive apostrophe correctly....

So I'm used to getting lots of corrections. To me, every correction makes the final result that much better. It doesn't matter if it's punctuation, typos, or complete re-writing of sentences to make them clearer -- it all goes towards the production of a hopefully quality product in the end.

[Cole Parker]

That's how I feel, too, Graeme. Now. At the beginning it hurt a little. Now I expect to see many corrections, and believe me, I get them. I type faster than I should, and while I self-edit before sending stuff out, it still contains a huge number of things needing corrections.

But now I feel happy to see them. I agree: making the story the best it can be is the important thing, and I'm happy to see the problems so I can correct them. I think new authors, seeing a corrected manuscript for the first time, are the ones feeling the sting.

C

[Cole Parker]

That's how I feel, too, Graeme. Now. At the beginning it hurt a little. Now I expect to see many corrections, and believe me, I get them. I type faster than I should, and while I self-edit before sending something out, it still will contain a huge number of things needing corrections.

But now I feel happy to see them. I agree: making the story the best it can be is the important thing, and I'm happy to see the problems so I can correct them. I think new authors, seeing a corrected manuscript for the first time, are the ones feeling the sting.

C

[colinian]

I find it interesting that no matter how many times one of my stories (or a chapter) has been edited, and it's been posted for a while, anywhere from a day to a few years, when I go back to that story (or chapter) I find things to fix. Amazingly, I find real typos, like "for" instead of "from" or the first letter in a sentence not capitalized. I also find more serious flaws like a problem with the sequence of events or dates.

I appreciate it when I receive email from readers about problems similar to those I've just described. I always write thanking them, and telling them I've made the changes. If what's been reported isn't an error I always write and explain why what I wrote is correct, and thanking them for writing about what they thought was an error, and asking them to continue letting me know when they find something, anything, in my stories. As a result, I have correspondents who write regularly and not just to report errors and typos. They are an extra set of eyes that help keep my stories as error-free as possible.

Colin

[DesDownunder]

Colin, the problem seems to get worse as you get older, or the keyboard learns new ways to mistype.