Most people have no idea what I do

Yesterday I worked with the admin staff of the organisation that publishes
the magazine.  We packed the autumn issue of Japan Harvest for mailing.
These ladies also help with advertising, translation, and fact checking
from Japanese sources. While I was there an OMF colleague dropped in
for a while and I also spent time on the phone with another colleague. I always
enjoy volunteering in this way. Though it isn't what a managing editor usually
does, it is a good opportunity to connect with some of my team, but also to
network. I almost always am introduced to someone I haven't met or meet
someone when I'm doing this. The office is in a Christian office building in
downtown Tokyo. Yes! There is such a thing. How that came to be is another
story in itself, but it is a great place to network with others.

"People, in general, don't understand what editors do." I've found this to be true in my time as an editor. It isn't until I've worked with a writer through the process of getting something they've written published, that they have a better idea.

I seem to have ended up in a succession of careers that aren't easy to explain: Occupational Therapist, missionary, and now missionary and editor! None of these work very well in polite conversation with a hairdresser. Finding an "elevator speech" for any of them is challenging.

So when I found this short video by a newspaper editor that succinctly described what we do, I was thrilled.

Here is his summary of various species of editors:

Developmental editor: works closely with the writer in early stages, working with the writer on the idea, focus, scope, organisation, writing, and revising.
Line editor: focuses on the macro editing of a completed text, though focus, structure, tone, organisation, legal and ethical issues often come into it.
Copy editor: takes a micro approach looking at factual accuracy, grammar, spelling, usage, and house style.
Proofreader: takes a text ready for publication and checks it for typographical errors, spelling errors, garble, and similar infelicities. They don't edit the text.

These can blur into one another, especially in a small organisation. I do all of these, though I have a team to help me and I try to keep my hands off the micro stuff if I'm dealing with a piece that needs work at a developmental stage. There's no point in correcting spelling or capitalisation if that word is not going to be used in the end.

He said that editors overall try to establish: what is appropriate for the writer, the subject, the occasion, the publications, and the reader. And they all work to keep the writer from looking bad in public.

Though I do all of these, I find it hard to jump between one and another. I find it hard to do developmental work with one piece of writing and then jump straight into copy editing another. I'm glad that one cycle of our magazine lasts about two to three months, so I can take the time to put different hats on as I go. I also have difficulty jumping into an editing conversation without having had some mental preparation for that (so an unexpected phone call or encounter with an author wanting to talk about a piece of writing is hard).

On top of the above "species" of editors, I'm a managing editor, so I oversee other editors as well as the rest of the members of my team. Plenty of variety, which is just as I like it most of the time.

Because I don't fill out timesheets and aren't paid by the hour I sometimes wonder if I am full-time employed. But I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I am. It's hard to measure how much you do when you're a full-time missionary. All sorts of things are part of ministry: building and maintaining relationships, language learning, dealing with bureaucratic requirements (like visas), and supervising/being supervised. 

But many of these things happen in "regular" jobs too. How much time did I spend at team meetings, doing statistics for the number crunchers, or answering email when I was working in health care? Even just driving to and from home visits or between workplaces on a workday, these were counted as work in the full-time jobs I've had.

The big difference is that my personal life is now much more mixed into my work as I work from home. But that's what I grew up seeing my parents do as they ran a business from home.

Not having an easy measuring stick around your work can make it hard to know when to say yes and when to say no. Being a relatively reliable person who's been around a while now, I often get asked to do things, to attend meetings, help run things, meet with people etc. But I'm finding that I'm in a season of having to say no. I'm close to my limit in what I can do and stay healthy, so I have to pick and choose carefully.

But...now I'm rambling and probably should get back to one of those non-editing jobs I have: writing our prayer letter.