“Edit or regret it, Jen.” This was the subject of an email from Bookbaby, my would-be Amazon publisher. I haven’t taken more than initial steps so the email wasn’t in regards to a specific project. Still, scanning through the subject lines of the day’s mostly junk emails, this one made me flinch a little. Emphasis added as I took it quite personally.
Ask an editor: Is it ever done? Do you ever feel like you caught ALL the edits? Mightn’t it be subjective anyway? Would you have x’ed out the word “mightn’t?” when I would most definitely keep it?
For someone who edits a lot in general life activities, it can feel like an unendingly exhausting task. Let’s examine a few:
Written word. Writing is amazing. You can write something you feel fairly proud of one day and come across it on another and wonder who left this pile of trash here. I can’t tell you how delighted but even more than that—comforted, relieved I am by my still liking it or just, retaining feelings of “that was ok.” I am always editing, even after something is so-called “finished.” But I tend to prefer “good enough,” as I refuse to take the perfectionist’s path. Also, I get bored easily. So once I declare it finished, it is finished. (So let it be written, so let it be done)
Written music. I write music but only kind of. I do it insofar as it suits my needs. This means things are often half-written, half-complete and rarely useful to anyone else. Sort of a “one time use” kind of thing. I tell myself it makes it more interesting and “rare.” Really I hate notating so much that it takes everything I have to do the meager scratch I can produce. But I feel much lameness about it, especially when I give it to another performer to decipher. And that’s with more edits than I could ever count. It’s embarrassing, but whatever. I guess I know my limits and stumble along anyway.
Verbal words. These are harder. I think often of that episode of Saved By the Bell where the boys, after saying thoughtless things to their girlfriends on Valentine’s Day, stage a “What I Should Have Said Theater” and how brilliant it is.
I am trying so hard to find a still image of this scene and all I can find is this, when Slater takes back his initial and cruel derision when Jessie excitedly presented ballet tickets as their VDay date. He changes his answer and, stripping to a leotard, does an impressive ballet move to show her how into it he actually is.
Since it is less feasible to do this in real life—though not impossible, likely with fewer wigs and leotards but not necessarily(!)— I often stage a mental “What I Wish I’d Said Theater.” Similar, but not quite the same. They aren’t things that would be worth saying to a person, things like clarification to rectify a major misunderstanding or an apology to mend hurt feelings, both of which I am in great support of. Rather, they are things I wish I’d said to make it better, funnier, more interesting or closer to what I actually meant.
I play out the relevant bits of conversation and make edits by inserting what I wish I’d said and then convince myself that’s how it really went down. I’m not delusional, probably, but somehow it satisfies any regret and editorial dissonance I feel for not having the exact words I wanted exactly when I wanted them, a plague from which I cursedly, chronically suffer.
I really recommend this though. The next time you find yourself sitting in the aftermath pool of your misspeak, just make some mental edits of your own and insert something better into your memory. And then move on with your life. It will do wonders for your peace of mind and aid you toward the goal of caring less about what others think. You know what you meant to say. What else really matters? (If it’s funny though, you have to tell me.)
I also do this when there’s a response I’d like to give but which, for whatever reason, would not go over well. Like a made-up world where, regardless of who you’re with, you’re free to express all the things and be completely understood. Dream of dreams!
I have a writer/best friend named Brooke who is so thoughtful and gifted, both verbally and writefully, an adverb completely made-up because English fails us yet again. No adverb for “write”?? Indeed, she is a wordsmith and you can find her gems, usually of a spiritual nature, here. One of her strengths is concision which, alas, is my weakness— in both senses: It is not my strength and I am naturally drawn to it, having a weakness for it. Like chocolate. When I have an idea, I like to mine it to near death while recognizing the worth of leaving out a few pearls (I understand a lot about mining/gemstones) for others to find, or not. Things are easily lost in translation but maybe that’s fine. Maybe you read this and think, yeah, Jen. They’re not all diamonds. But there’s something in me that retains this wild hope of a potential pearl-in-process.
Agatha Christie reminds me,
“You admire certain writers, you may even wish you could write like them, but you know quite well that you can’t [Jen]. Presumably you have learnt literary humility. I have learnt that I am me, that I can do the things that, as one might put it, me can do, but I cannot do the things that me would like to do. As the Bible says, ‘Who by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?’”
Maybe we’re not all writers. But we are human. Kind of an answer to Brandon Flowers’ question: “Are we human? Or are we dancer?” Since no one will ever know what he means and we probably aren’t meant to, let’s insert “writer” there instead. “Are we human? Or are we dancer writer?” (I just like using the strikeout tool)
To imagined Brandon, I say, why not both? Designed to express, however clumsily, we are authoring something here. With words and interchanges of all kinds. How great would it be if we could use the strikeout tool mid-conversation? I mean we can try, but even then there’s no guarantee of any particular outcome. And what of the flow? The authenticity? The rawness of forwardmoving life? The vulnerability and allowance to be seen failing, falling in the making, and carrying on. Does this not have value? Does this not tell a special kind of story of a distinctly you depiction? A humility, literary or otherwise?
I just went to a new tab to find an opposite, aka antonym, of a certain word but instead of typing the word I typed “antonym” and for some reason it made me laugh a little too hard for a little too long. I think I broke Google’s brain a little bit.
I was so entertainingly derailed by this, I don’t even remember the original word. But see? It doesn’t matter. I made myself laugh and who’s to say what I originally meant to say (whatever it was) is any better? I will undoubtedly enjoy this so much more. It’s just another file in my “things with which to make myself laugh” box. Regret is designed to keep you there in misery. I can’t fixate too much on what was unsaid, or said incorrectly. I forgive myself and I can only hope Google does the same.
My friend just sent me a video on Instagram of a person exaggerating the horrifying aftermath of a classic social foible, in this case taking place in a drive-thru after being handed their coffee:
Employee: Enjoy your coffee.
*you too..youtoo..too…* (horrifyingly echoing in her brain throughout the course of the day and maybe forevermore)
Person in car: You too.
Kind of like when someone asks, “How are you?” And you say, “Nothing.” Or when they say, “What’s up?” And you say, “Good.”
Like I said, classic, and very relatable. To me, this is small potatoes. But people in the comments shared their own horror stories and I have tears, they are so funny. Allow me to share some:
The lady in the bathroom stall next to me said, “Hey there” and so I said, “Hi.” She said, “What’s up?” and I said, “Not much.” Then she said,
“Let me call you back. Someone in the stall next to me keeps responding.”
Years ago when I was pregnant with my first baby, my husband and I were shopping for a rocking chair. When the sales guy approached us we were standing next to an armless rocking chair. He asked what style we were looking for and I said, "One with arms.”
Sales guy had no arms. I wanted to die.
One time I helped a customer and I tried to say “you’re welcome” and “no problem” and instead said, “Your problem!” and walked away in shame.
Was in the store and on my way to pay for my stuff and thought the cashier was going to ask if I wanted my receipt. I mentally prepared the answer. She did not ask. Instead she wished me a “Happy New Year” to which I replied, “No thanks…”
I live for this stuff. That last one reminds me of the time my sister and I were at the concession stand getting popcorn before seeing a movie. I told the guy I wanted “popcorn with no butter” but I must have had some crazy irrational fear of it because as I watched him proceed to the butter pump after filling the tub, in my great stumbling horror, I basically blurt-screamed at him, “NO POPCORN!” which stopped him dead in his tracks. Took me a minute to even realize what I’d said and we stared at each other in confused, frozen silence before I heard it and quietly fixed it: “I mean, no butter.”
Sean has one too. His is sort of a French version of the “you too” mistake. We were in France together last fall and tried so hard to communicate in a way that made us look the least idiotic as possible. It was exhausting. He had a bit of a failure when, after the sales guy gave him his receipt and said, “Merci beaucoup!” = <Thank you very much!>, Sean replied with a quiet, “Beaucoup…” and walked away. I didn’t even know about it until he told me later and I’m so glad he did.
Nora Ephron, journalist and writer of books and screen, grew up with screenwriter and playwright parents and a family motto was something her mother said:
Everything is copy.
Meaning, anything you’ve experienced is material for you to draw from. The good, the bad, the tragic, the euphoric, the embarrassing. I think about this motto all the time and have adopted it as my own. The stories we tell come from somewhere, sometime, and maybe in the telling we have more control than we did in the living. Which is nice.
But there’s something about the uneditable nature of lived experience, words we use carefully or recklessly, depending on so many elements within us—our emotions, our current capacity, our brain wiring—that is so compelling to me. Raw. Organic. Exposed. Even when I shared this essay with Sean and he had feedback, I was like, whoa whoa—take it easy there, pal. Not because there aren’t things I’d like to cut, but because all the experiences leading me to now became a part of me along the way. That matters to me.
So, I guess I can see what you’re saying to me in your weirdly threatening email subject, Bookbaby. I know too well the laborious necessity for editing when it comes to articulation—and how challenging it is, for me, as evidenced by this entire essay. But I’m just not sure about the regretting. For it may be that I’m more compelled by the perfection in flawed living, the joy from blunders connecting us all, and the infinite possibility in unearthing just what more there might be to say.
Thank you again for the wonderful laughs! Those word blunders were awesome. I'm pretty sure I make word blunders daily. My family is grateful I am word stupid because of all the entertainment it provides. I tell them "you're welcome" quite regularly. :)
So good! I laughed so hard I teared up 😂 My life is so full of these blunders and they just delight me, for they unearth raw humanity and have the power to connect us with others. As you so beautifully put it:
"For it may be that I’m more compelled by the perfection in flawed living, the joy from blunders connecting us all, and the infinite possibility in unearthing just what more there might be to say."