Editing Gifts

"We believe that in a former life she was an editor."

Writer with punctuation spray.

Gramma Police: 'Will work four food.'

The First Writer and Editor: 'Take out that part?! Are you nuts? How is the stampede scene at the end of the cave going to make sense without it?!'

'126,000 words done...now I just need to work out what order to put them in.'

'It was a last-minute change, but a good one.'

"Writing is... rewriting."

'They're arguing over whether it should have an apostrophe.'

"I have a lot of really good ideas, but I just can't get them down on paper."

"Baxter...about this report...your punctuation, spelling and grammar are perfect. No one can understand it!"

'No, go ahead and critique my mss. I'm always ok ... after the initial reaction.'

Sylvia helped Robert to edit one of his memos.

Publisher to writer: 'It was a great read, except I collided with run-on sentences, tripped over broken English and got knocked about by a dangling participle.'

One of the failed candidates for the copyrighters job wants to know 'wat was rong with his applicashun'.

'The grammar's awful and the spelling's atrocious - otherwise it's an impressive CV.'

"Mind if I tweak it?"

"I like it - it's wonderfully editable."

"One of the failed candidates for the copywriters job wants to know 'wart was rong with his applicashun?'"

"Damn long-winded Jefferson."

What Editors Do

'Can you redo this manuscript, John, and make it less stupid?'

"You tend to overuse the exclamation point."

"He spends hours waiting for his muse to strike..."

'Well, it was just a first draft.'

'Celebrity autobiography editing'

'Can you give me one good reason why you never use hyphens?'

'Obviously, if you look for mistakes you'll find some!'

"We'll add the everything in afterward."

Editor.

Punctuation-challenged posters.

"Now you can send it."

Your resume begins Once Upon A Time...I like that!

'Change the old guy to a young, hunky lifeguard patrolling a trendy beach in a speedboat and you may have something.'

THE REPORT: Some of this is brilliant, but that can be fixed.

Then - 'Oh no did I really say that last night??' Now - 'Edit, delete, delete, edit, edit, delete'