How to Nurture Talent (Without Being a Psycho Parent)
dinneralovestory.substack.com
There's a certain kind of writer that brings an inordinate amout of joy to an editor's life. They're a rare and beautiful species. I call them "total pros," and they share four essential characteristics: (1) They do the work, by which I mean they go out and perform the (sometimes tedious, sometimes unpleasant) job of reporting, making the calls and reading the studies and boarding the flights and prepping for the interviews and transcribing the tapes; (2) They are able to take all that reporting, digest it, organize it, and then turn that vast swamp of ideas and information into a neatly-tended, clear and thoughtful draft; (3) They then take the editor's inevitable, annoying notes on that draft, and perform the brutal task of opening that file up again and diving back into their story, pulling it apart and reworking it, turning it into something that is even better than the original, where every sentence is worried-over and cared-for; and (4) They are nice people.
How to Nurture Talent (Without Being a Psycho Parent)
How to Nurture Talent (Without Being a Psycho…
How to Nurture Talent (Without Being a Psycho Parent)
There's a certain kind of writer that brings an inordinate amout of joy to an editor's life. They're a rare and beautiful species. I call them "total pros," and they share four essential characteristics: (1) They do the work, by which I mean they go out and perform the (sometimes tedious, sometimes unpleasant) job of reporting, making the calls and reading the studies and boarding the flights and prepping for the interviews and transcribing the tapes; (2) They are able to take all that reporting, digest it, organize it, and then turn that vast swamp of ideas and information into a neatly-tended, clear and thoughtful draft; (3) They then take the editor's inevitable, annoying notes on that draft, and perform the brutal task of opening that file up again and diving back into their story, pulling it apart and reworking it, turning it into something that is even better than the original, where every sentence is worried-over and cared-for; and (4) They are nice people.