Editing a Book for the First Time
“The twin existences of who we hope to be and who we actually are have been a longstanding literary obsession. We tell endless stories about the forces that compete for our souls, whether it’s Faust and his devils, Kendrick Lamar’s K. Dot trying to find his way through in good kid, m.A.A.d city, or Odysseus blessed by Pallas Athena and punished by Poseidon. These works encourage close examination of motives and morals. But it’s much easier to surrender responsibility to gods or circumstance than take matters into our own hands and say, Perhaps I am not who I consider myself to be. Perhaps, in truth, I have never really considered myself at all.” - Kae Tempest, On Connection
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When I started reading Kae Tempest’s On Connection, I felt like I was reading the manifesto for Parea’s existence. The short but intellectually dense (in a great way) text is all about creativity fostering deep connection—both with our own selves, and with others around us. But, they argue, to truly feel this connection we have to actually engage with creativity. It is not enough to look at words on a page, to mindlessly hear the sound of music that touches our ears. It’s not about extracting value from a creative work, it’s about what you give back to that work. You have to work, too.
This principle of engagement has long been the foundation for Parea, both in terms of content and what happens off the page. As I explained in a previous post, one of the most impactful experiences I’ve had with a book came from how I engaged with it. I knew I wanted all of my books to prompt this kind of deep self-reflection and participation, which isn’t an easy feat. The author has to write words that are evocative enough to not only keep you reading, but also get you thinking and feeling. Then, we have to create an exercise of engagement that you are compelled to participate in. When we default to things that ask nothing of us (scrolling through social media, watching TV) it’s not easy to compel us to create. What I know now is that the editor is just as complicit in making this happen as the author.
The fact that I had never edited, made, or sold books before made editing the first Parea book a daunting proposition. However, I didn’t want to hire an editor. I thought that if I wanted to create the type of books that are few and far between on the bookstore shelves, I’d have to edit the first few myself to make them the way I envisioned. I received plenty of advice from people urging me to do the exact opposite. “You absolutely need an editor”, “book editors know what actually makes a book, you don’t know how to do that.”
Don’t I? Haven’t the thousands of books I’ve read prepared me to edit my own? Isn’t my vision of what I want the book to be strong enough to make me an editor?
Well, let’s see. I could be a complete crap editor. But, I had a great time editing the first book.
Being an editor is kind of like being a doula. You’re birthing and giving life to a creative work that’s never existed. You’re guiding the author through every turn, using lots of empathy to sense when they need encouragement versus direct feedback. There are times when the author will want to take a sharp left and change the entire structure of the book, times when they want to tear the entire thing up and start over, times when they start furiously editing and re-editing themselves, turning the book into a Frankenstein-ed text. There are times when they feel confident about something that’s not worth including, and times when they have a stroke of genius and plop something completely brilliant in the manuscript.
One of my favorite things in the entire world is meeting someone, seeing their potential, and helping them realize that potential. That’s the thing I liked most about editing this first book. I know Jenna, and I know what she’s capable of. I know how her words and her philosophy on life and her general existence make me feel. I also know that she’s self-conscious, that her writing is extremely personal (well, everyone’s is, but this book is about her life), that she doesn’t think of herself yet as an author, and that she wants to make people feel as comfortable as possible. She’s always had all of the right words, it was just a matter of helping her find them and put them in the right places.
In truth, this book was not as heavily edited as most. I wanted to keep Jenna’s voice as pure as possible, but I helped her find the right order to her stories, to create a creative journal reflection section, to take detail out in some places and add it in others. I removed some stories and poems that I didn’t think were additive, and I asked for more stories in places where I thought the reader would benefit from more color and context. I asked her to add in poetry; at the beginning stages of this book we thought it would be a collection of stories. I believe that some of the poems in the book are the strongest parts of the text.
But! As enjoyable as this was, it was also really nerve-wracking! I felt imposter syndrome on an almost daily basis, asking myself who I thought I was, editing this book. I felt such deep obligation to Jenna to make this book as perfect as possible, and several times felt the urge to call on a traditional editor to help. I questioned my choices, often wondering if I knew anything at all about books.
I suppose time will tell if this was a successful edit, but I can say that on a personal level, I’m really proud of it. And I’m so grateful to Jenna for trusting me and being one of the best partners I could have in this process, especially for the first book. Thank you, Jenna!
I’ll leave you with another quote from Kae:
“If we give as much as we expect to take from a novel, a poem, an image or an album, it has a greater chance of becoming profound. As readers, we feel this happen when something speaks directly to our experience and we feel the words burning themselves into us. We get some sense of the poet or the writer as someone we feel knows us. […] You may forget the exact words, but you carry a relationship with the text through your life. You may think this was entirely because of the quality of the text, but it was also about the quality of your reading. It is the connection between the author, the text and you as you read, at a particular point, with a particular set of circumstances informing a particular emotional response, that created that sense of deep meaning.”
I’m so eager and excited for this book to be in your hands. I can’t wait to see how you read it, to see what you, the reader, give to it. We wrote and edited this book hoping that you see yourself in it, that you sense that Jenna really does know you. And man, I really hope you carry a relationship with this text through your life. That would be pretty cool.