Toward the end of my second decade of editing pieces submitted to two different publications, I did an extensive edit on a shoddy piece that was otherwise unpublishable. The submitter displayed a bad case of Golden Words Syndrome by complaining that I’d “destroyed her voice” (oh sweetie, what voice?) and demanded her original hot mess be published unedited.

So I did that, with an editor’s note on the blog to clarify that the work was published exactly as submitted, by request of the author.

She must have read it with new eyes because she contacted me again, begging me to “work with her” to improve the piece. I declined. I had no interest in holding her hand while editing that word salad a second time.

This reluctance helped me realize I was burned out on editing other people’s work. I stepped aside from editing shortly afterwards and haven’t missed it.