They say that all editors are failed writers. I am sure there is some truth to that maxim—after all, it is a maxim—but I think a big, fancy asterisk has to appear beside the word "failed." When I was ten, my mom brought home some books with funny pictures, lively short stories, and neat rows of lines. Lots and lots of lines. My clever mother had spent hard-earned money—money that could have gone to our Disneyland fund (currently rattling around the bottom of my Snoopy jar)—on write-your-own-ending exercise books! After reading and rereading (and rereading) the enticing intros, I valiantly took up the story about a naughty piccolo. All too soon I was planted on the couch watching The Little Mermaid, the books buried in the linen closet.
In high school, I aced essays and struggled with lab reports. School newspaper editorials came easily, but hard-news stories did not. In journalism school I could churn out radio scripts in my sleep, but drafting a television spot was like chewing tin foil. Was I a writer or not?
I finally figured it out when I became a book editor. Just like many of you, I love writing, reading, and anything to do with words. Unlike many of you, I cannot write fiction. Short stories, novels, plays—I am utterly useless. But ask me for some jacket copy or a book review, and the writer in me blooms. Yes, I'm a failed* writer.
*But I can write in certain styles with the best of them.
Anyone who loves to write can be a successful writer. Sometimes, it's simply a matter of figuring out what kind of writing you're good at, and you might have to think outside the box for that. A failed novelist, poet, and playwright may just be the greatest biographer the world has ever seen.
(And if you're really stuck, consider a career writing story endings. I hear the market's wide open.)
What kind of writing is right for you?
Patricia Ocampo
Editorial Assistant, HarperCollins Publishers
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