An editor lives in my head
Years ago, Lois used to argue with John in actual cafes. They would meet and he would have a long black and her and oat milk flattie. Sometimes they ate (him lasagne with side salad, her a scone which she'd barely touch).
Lois is writing about writing. She's been going for five days straight, her bed unmade, the house trashed, piles of plates and cups stacking up on her standing desk. It's hard work; not just because the subject matter is hard (the challenge of climate denialism in the media) but because an editor lives permanently in her head. This editor, who happens to look a lot like John Huria, sits in the corner of her office with a brown briefcase smoking a cigar reminding her that writing about writing is not objectively speaking that interesting.
Years ago, Lois used to argue with John in actual cafes. They would meet and he would have a long black and her and oat milk flattie. Sometimes they ate (him lasagne with side salad, her a scone which she'd barely touch). Lois would insist that readers are in fact very interested in authors' reasons and rationale and hidden motivations, to which John would nod politely and disagree. John would say that readers are more likely to be interested in, for example, what the writer ate for lunch than what they mused about over lunch.
But after awhile she stopped. Not only was she getting very little writing done sitting around in cafes talking about writing about writing, she started to notice what John meant: The way some writers began by announcing they're writing. The prevalence of unnecessary paragraphs threaded with personal narrative like running commentary to the main subject.
Trust that if the reader's reading, John would say, they're interested. If they aren't they won't.
Once Lois had been taught to see it, she couldn't unsee it. She encountered writing about writing everywhere. Then she realised John might be right. Figured. John was friends Renée. An editorial team who both believed that writers should just get on with it.
There was, however, ONE exception. Writing about writing is ok, John would say, if the subject is writing. He used to jot in the margins of Lois' draft manuscript: save this for your essay about writing.
She never did write that essay. It was boring.
But she's writing one now.