#Proofreading

Editing is artisan violence that blends the author’s soul in a blender and elegantly conceals others’ mistakes. The more you meddle with a manuscript, the more its original voice is suffocated, hiding in plain sight in the finished product. It is cultural weightlifting, repeatedly deconstructing and reconstructing strings of text to flaunt one’s taste. A performative balancing act between reader pleasure and critic skepticism—an extreme self-contradiction. And in the end, no one wants to take responsibility for this spectacle, the sensual ritual called editing.

An editor is the culinary artist who grinds an author's raw prose in a blender of personal taste and serves the result on the plate of publication. They wield the red pen like a surgeon, excising typos and clumsy phrases while injecting the sweet elixir of improvement. Behind every shining book title lies a tyrant who dissects past glories and enforces laws ensuring their own raison d'être. They brandish criticism as a tool, submerging innocent words in agony to simultaneously refine the work and their own self-worth. A merciful shadow sovereign who demands perfection but conveniently shifts the blame onto the author.