Editing requires you to be always open, always responding. It is very important, for example, not to allow yourself to want the writer to write a certain kind of book. Sometimes that's hard.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Editing is simply the application of the common sense of any good reader. That's why, to be an editor, you have to be a reader. It's the number one qualification.
Truth is, every writer has to be a good editor, and you have to edit yourself. It's a skill every writer has to acquire.
In my experience, with very few exceptions - I am, as it happens, one of the exceptions - the one thing that most editors don't want to do is edit. It's not nearly as conducive to a successful career as having lunch out with important agents or going to meetings where you get noticed.
I know that many authors say editors don't edit anymore, but that's not been true in my experience.
When you're editing, you want to be the perfect appreciator, not another writer.
An editor is an accomplice, looking in from the outside. That objective view is essential. We don't write in a vacuum, and we don't publish in a vacuum.
In a way, editing is not unlike the movies. The best books, just like the best movies, are a collaboration. They're only as good as the compromise made between the artists involved.
In the world of book writing, an author really gets to have control over what he or she writes, which is why it is very satisfying. With the help of a great compatible editor, you really have something in the end you can call your own.
Editing is the same as quarrelling with writers - same thing exactly.
I feel sorry for people who have to edit me. Which is why book writing is by far the most enjoyable. Really the only thing it's based on is whether it's good or not. No book editor, in my experience, is getting a manuscript and try to rewrite it.