The Uninvited Editor

A column about the voices that show up in the draft before I've finished writing it.

Every writer has an editor. Mine just never asked permission, doesn't work here, and has opinions about everything.

It pulls up a chair the moment I open a document about this life, this body, the chronic illness I write from. Before I've finished a sentence, it's already marking it up. Sometimes it doubts me, scribbles prove it in the margin, wants lab results before I'm allowed a feeling. Sometimes it directs me, sends notes down from some imaginary desk about tone, about arc, about what readers will and won't accept. I didn't invite it. It hasn't left yet. And it has talked me out of more true sentences than any real editor ever could.

This column is me learning to catch that voice in the act. Each piece names one of its notes, shows how the note bends an honest line until it starts apologizing for itself, and then writes past it. Because the work gets good right about the time I thank the uninvited editor for its input and keep typing anyway.