When I retired people celebrated for many reasons.  Those closest to me were relieved—NO MORE RED INK!

My red ink obsession had become part of the office talk.  I often reviewed memos and reports before they were distributed. At first, staff members were overwhelmed by the amount of red ink I deposited on their work. Later they joked about the edits and suggestions I’d make—lines and arrows, cross outs and deletes— the topic didn’t matter, there was no escape.  And so it came to be, submit your draft and get ready to weep.

I went through each sentence with a fine-tooth comb—commas, periods and questions—“What does this mean?”  At end, I’d always write—“Do what is right, I know you will.”  If the red ink didn’t confuse them, the comment did.  Several asked, “How do I know what is right?”

I’d smile, and say, “It’s your memo, do what is right.”  Of course that was my way of saying I have confidence in you.  Interestingly, not one ever let me down.

I expected the same type of editing from them on whatever I wrote.  When I’d share a draft with new staff members they were often reluctant to say much, maybe a suggestion, comma or question mark.  I would send it back with a note ‘Please return with your suggestions.’  It didn’t take long before everyone had a red pen.

Even after my retirement others in my life were exposed to my red pen obsession.  I remember the secretary of our homeowner’s association in North Carolina making the fatal mistake, asking, “Would you like to review the meeting minutes before I send them out?”

The next morning I handed him the red-soaked proceedings.  He looked at me and asked, “Did you cut yourself shaving?”

We had a good laugh and once again the red pen became the SOP.

As I began writing fiction I continued with the approach of drafting several pages at a time then pulling out the red pen and editing, editing, editing.  By the time I was ready to send the first two chapters to my editor, I had labored over them for a month and they were “perfect.”

A week later when I received the editor’s work there was MORE RED INK THAN I’D EVER SEEN!  Not one sentence survived the onslaught; corrections, deletes, word choices, sentence structure – – blood everywhere. In the margins she wrote, “What do you mean?”  “Show, don’t tell.”  “Let the characters tell the story.”

With my ego decimated, I carried the bloody chapters from the ‘operating room’ to show Lin.  She flipped through the ravished pages then looked up with a smile.  “Looks like its payback time.  Now you know how your staff felt all of those years.”  There was nothing I could say. Surely I hadn’t been that hard on them.

It took several days before my psychic would allow me write again.  This time I had a new resolve—write a sentence, a paragraph, and then a page—without one red mark from the editor.   It took several months for that day to arrive, but one night it finally happened, two pages came back from the editor without a red mark.  I ran through the house to show Lin.  “Look … look,” I shouted “two pages without a red mark.”

She smiled and said only as a wife might say, “Maybe she missed them.”  My heart sank, I’d never thought of it that way.  Rushing back to my office, I emailed my editor.

The response came within minutes.  “I was there.”

Now I knew how my staff had felt—the grief and then the relief.  They had perfected the memo and done the job; I had finally written a scene and the editor felt like she was there.

Hallelujah!