editing

You know, I do music. If you look under the hood of the industry I'm in, it's all based on technology. From radio to phonographs to CDs, it's all technology. Microphones, reel-to-reels, cameras, editing, chips, it's all technology.

I don't come from a film background. I haven't learned anything about films or film-making. But I have a thirst to know everything about my profession. I want to learn about cinematography, about editing, about music recordings, about post-production. So when people in the know talk, I willingly listen.

Filmmaking is a very complex form - ya know, acting, lighting, screenwriting, storytelling, music, editing - all these things have to come together.

Teen problem novels? I can go through them like a box of chocolates. And there are fantasy books out now that need a lot more editing. Fantasy got to be so popular that people began to think 'We don't need to be as diligent with the razor blade,' but they do.

I think the only reason people use PCs is because they have to. Mac is the most streamlined computer there is. I started using the Mac in college because I was doing editing, and they were the only computers we could use to do that.

A lot of the music editing job is communication and working out what a director really wants the music to be.

Editors can be stupid at times. They just ignore that author__ intention. I always try to read unabridged editions, so much is lost with cut versions of classic literature, even movies don__ make sense when they are edited too much. I love the longueurs of a book even if they seem pointless because you can get a peek into the author__ mind, a glimpse of their creative soul. I mean, how would people like it if editors came along and said to an artist, __hoops, you left just a tad too much space around that lily pad there, lets crop that a bit, shall we?_. Monet would be ripping his hair out.

... The Book is more important than your plans for it. You have to go with what works for The Book ~ if your ideas appear hollow or forced when they are put on paper, chop them, erase them, pulverise them and start again. Don't whine when things are not going your way, because they are going the right way for The Book, which is more important. The show must go on, and so must The Book.

The internet is killing the art of writing. The big "publish" button begs you to publish even before you go back and make one single edit, and as if this was not enough, you have instant readers who praise your writing skills!-

It was only after the Grimms published two editions primarily for adults that they changed their attitude and decided to produce a shorter edition for middle-class families. This led to Wilhelm's editing and censoring many of the tales.

I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.

How do you end a story that__ not yours? Add another sentence where there is a pause? Infiltrate the story with a comma when really there should have been a period? Punctuate with an exclamation point where a period would have sufficed? What if you kill something breathing and breathe life into something the author wanted to eliminate? How do you get inside the mind of a person who isn__ there? Fill the shoes of someone who will never again fill his own?

While writing is like a joyful release, editing is a prison where the bars are my former intentions and the abusive warden my own neuroticism.

Verbose is not a synonym for literary.

It was a miracle to me, this transformation of my acorns into an oak.

I have always believed in the principle that immediate survival is more important than long-term survival.

It has been our experience that American houses insist on very comprehensive editing; that English houses as a rule require little or none and are inclined to go along with the author's script almost without query. The Canadian practice is just what you would expect--a middle-of-the-road course. We think the Americans edit too heavily and interfere with the author's rights. We think that the English publishers don't take enough editorial responsibility. Naturally, then, we consider our editing to be just about perfect. There's no doubt about it, we Canadians are a superior breed! (in a letter to author Margaret Laurence, dated May, 1960)

I edit my own stories to death. They eventually run and hide from me.