Like last month I was going over edits for a type of word puzzle that I like and that I had made a version of and that I had submitted to a puzzle society that I belong to to publish in their monthly newsletter, and the editor had a lot of good stuff to say, but with some of the clues, he like completely came up with new ones in alternate and potentially better ways, which was nice, but also sometimes very infuriating, since it's like he was writing the puzzle for me and he sucked the air out of the room with the ideas that he came up with, when instead he should have tentatively suggested something striking out in a new direction and seen what I could come up with, with whatever hint or new idea that he had provided me with.
I was telling this to my one lawyer friend from (Missouri), who I've been teaching to do this type of word puzzle over the phone with photocopies I had mailed her as a pandemic-time distraction that she had expressed a need for - I thought she'd like this particular type of puzzle since she likes puns - and she observed that a good editor is someone who maximally leaves you be or brings out the "you" in you, or does something like you would do it, and not insert themself into whatever you're writing.
Like my one art school colleague who wears women's clothes says, "#Truth".
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