Photograph courtesy of Andrew Neel, Unsplash.

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies ofThe Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.” Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), American poet, writer, critic and satirist

When I started as a young writer, I was shocked to see my work edited if accepted and sometimes dramatically so. There were a few occasions when I didn’t even recognize it as my own.  I eventually got it. If I wanted to be sure my work was published the way I meant it to be, that it said what I meant it to say, the trick was to fine-tune content and flow, proofread and copy edit. I learned to let work gestate (a day or a week or more depending…