When was the last time you read a book or magazine article or any published text and thought, “That piece had a great editor!” My guess is never. Beautiful stories, elegant prose, thought-provoking content are all attributed to the writer. There’s nothing wrong with that, but in many cases it’s only partly true.

I’ve taken on some freelance editing work for a former employer – a place I served as an editor from 1998 to 2007 – and don’t have much time for my own writing right now because I’m busy shepherding other writers’ words from concept to completed manuscript. I’m reminded what a thankless job this can be. With tight deadlines, there’s rarely time for feedback and a second or third rewrite by the author. Instead, it’s my job to work with what’s submitted and mine for gold, sifting through the sediment until only the most valuable parts remain. When I’m done, if I did my job well, there should be no sign I was ever there.

The years I worked as an editor, my brain was perpetually viewing text as something to perfect or clarify or cull. I did little to no reading “for fun,” and no personal writing. It’s made me a little uneasy to let that genie back out of her bottle, for fear she’ll make me second guess myself so much I never hit “publish” again. I try to remember that no one’s paying me to write here, so I only have to please myself (a harder task than I’d like to admit).

I suppose the biggest difference between me as an editor and me as a writer is that when I write I value the sediment as much as the gold. The “sifting” is often an important part of my prose, instead of something my editor does in private. By the time I’m through, there’s something shiny in every post, but it’s a much messier process than the editor in me would like. More authentic, though, and more vulnerable – two qualities I’m eager to cultivate, and proof my inner editor isn’t the boss of me.

The Presbyterian poet, Ann Weems, once told me I was her favorite editor (no doubt because I respected her writing talent and knew how to get out of her way). I was good at editing, the same way I was good at a lot of behind-the-scenes work in previous incarnations of my life. But I definitely want to be on this side of the manuscript now, with my name attached to whatever I create.