I realized yesterday that I have been working at this suspiciously vague editing job of mine for like five months in resume time. In that time, I've edited around fifty B.E.E.s and probably a thousand or so T.L.E.s.

I've also dealt with my share of writers, probably two a day on average though more lately, and the vast majority of them are chatty, friendly, and apologetic. Sometimes I have to catch myself, because I've started to make smalltalk.

The people who've really, really messed up their assignments — this is the group that I occasionally refer to as the "supergeniuses" — tend to be polite, but a bit self-righteous and confused. Yesterday I finally had one get snippy with me, saying, "Well, I don't envy your job, I'll tell you that."

To which I instinctively responded, "Well, you have to love editing."

And it's true. I mean, long conversations with hostile writers do suck, but I have fun at work every day: when I spot a hard-to-find error, when I discover some new species of mistake, when I show a writer how to avoid a persistent problem, etc. It's hard to start work — even when it's just a matter of leaving warm covers and walking to your computer, the commute still sucks — but once I'm there, yeah.

It's clear to me, has been clear to me for a while, that I'm happy here, with a decent foothold on what is probably one of the lowest rungs on that tall, tall editing ladder. (Though in fact, I'd probably be happy in any English geek job.)

Step three (sigh): profit.