The closest I’ve got to traditional publishing is getting my articles in the company internal newsletter. This happened today.
Being edited is a weird experience. I’m reading my own words, but occasionally I see something I would never write. I haven’t been done any kind of disservice, this time round at least. But for some reason the newsletter is laid out like a paper newsletter even though it’s only distributed as a PDF. Which means space constraints. There may even be some kind of editorial style imposed. Anyway, I am reading my supposed own words, and occasionally exclaim something like, “I’ve *never* used the word ‘tremendous’!”. It’s not necessarily a bad word, it’s just not one I ever say or write. So seeing it under my byline is…weird.
There are word count limits that I know about in advance, so I find myself unable to elaborate, or having elaborated, have to cut out whole swathes of my arguments to get the word count down. And then there is editorial feedback. “Could you remove the bit about eliminating project managers?” Well, I suppose I could tone it down a bit, but I want to be a bit controversial, otherwise what’s the point of saying anything?
Here’s something I could immediately tell I hadn’t written, without being able to put my finger on why:
Raymond argues that the role of project managers as resource allocators becomes obsolete in the bazaar because personal motivation becomes the key instigator in ensuring that the best possible code is produced.
I think “key instigator” is a phrase I would never use. “Best possible code” doesn’t sound like me either. Here’s what I actually wrote:
Raymond argues that project managers are not needed in the bazaar because motivation comes for free and marshalling of resources happens automatically in its free market in reputation.
To be honest, I think the edited version is probably better. I think I am sometimes so concerned about not talking down to my audience that I don’t explain myself properly, and end up using turns of phrase that leave them going, “huh?” But it is also a failure because the “free market” aspect of allowing developers to choose which problems to work on has been lost in the translation. I really need another couple of hundred words to explain it.
So it’s a huge difference from blogging, where I can say what I want, how I want to say it. Presumably real writers for real publications have the same sorts of experience.
Does the editing make the article better? Perhaps it does. Perhaps it makes for a more readable, bite-sized, less rambly article. Perhaps it is good that I was prevented from writing, “we should throw away project management” and alienating all the project managers I work with…
Perhaps all this is also true of the differences between radio, with its producers and scripts, and podcasting.