I want to tell you about one important part of our lives that Elayne and I happily shared.
Especially in recent years, we each wrote, and we edited.
On a typical day, I was working downstairs on my laptop on the dining room table. Elayne was working upstairs on the desktop. Mostly, we did not interrupt each other, except for some particularly thorny issue. We shared our opinions on some of the big questions, like titles and how to summarize or introduce our books. We were there for each other.
Perhaps you hated being edited. I did not. As many of my former staff could tell you, a major writing project was not done until we had done 17 versions. I’m not exaggerating. How fortunate, or perhaps how inevitable, that Elayne and I were so compatible, that we could share the toils and satisfactions of writing and editing together.
I want to share a couple of comments from people Elayne worked with.
The first is from Dr. Tyrone Bynoe, professor at St. Bonaventure University.
Elayne had been hired by the Department of Organization and Leadership at the Teachers College-Columbia University to provide writing tutorial service to several of its doctoral students. I just wanted you to know that she helped many doctoral students at the Teachers College-Columbia University, and I am one of them that had to take the time to jot my deepest appreciation to you. Elayne’s tutoring supplied me with the tools to become an effective writer.
Elayne was simply amazing; she was a terrific talent. She helped me enormously. Your wife, Elayne, was an amazing blessing.
The second is from Dr. Vernay Mitchell-McKnight, who worked with Elayne at AED and remained friends forever after.
In our last phone conversation, I talked to Elayne about my work at Riverside Church as a member of the planning committee for the Riverside Writing Group. After a few years of enjoying our work together, other committee members asked me how I learned to write so well. I told them my writing success can be attributed to two people—my high school English teacher in my senior year, Miss Tribble and our editor at AED, Elayne Archer.
Finally, an anecdote that Elayne loved to tell.
Elayne asked one of her students at St. Peter’s college to come to her office to discuss a recent writing assignment. The woman was clearly anxious. After sitting down, she informed Elayne, “I just wanted to let you know, I am going to be sitting at the right hand of Jesus.”
“Yes,” Elayne replied, “but Jesus did not have run-on sentences.”
Many people dread or hate being edited. Even those of us who consider ourselves “good writers” can get a little defensive when someone edits us.
But the point is this: editing is a means to help you become your best self. Elayne did this for so, so many people. For me, above all.
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