How does an Editor become an Editor?

Hi! It’s me, Dustin, owner and lead editor here at the Author’s Hand.

I don’t know about you, but I always like to know who I’m hiring. What’s their history? What makes them qualified to do work for me? Who is this person, really?

Well, you’re not going to get the whole story here, but you’ll get a bit more of it than you’re used to from working professionals. And who knows? Maybe by knowing me a little bit better you’ll trust me a little bit more. Because trust is important when you’re sending off your manuscript to be worked on by someone you’ve never met face to face.

I was born in small-town Western Canada, and from a very early age I fell in love with books, music (MC Hammer anyone?), and especially drawing. However, only one of those things I would carry with me into adulthood, as my love for drawing died at the skill level of a three-year-old, and my love for creating music died with the dissolution of my garage band in Grade 11. Good riddance. We were awful!

Like many of you, books have always remained my constant. It started when I was only four years old with my father reading The Hobbit to me before bed, and this obsession with stories continued throughout grade school. I became especially consumed with the written word (and writing!) as I entered university, where I pursued a BA double major in English Literature and History. During my four years at the University of Alberta, when I wasn’t serving as the resident essay editor, I wrote mostly every day, all the while trying to keep up with my own studies.

I graduated in 2011 with Distinction from the U of A, and because I was told to get a real job, I joined municipal government and quickly worked my way up the corporate ladder. I never did truly enjoy the work, but I found out that I was good at leading and motivating people—two skills I previously wouldn’t have thought to associate with myself. I hired, trained, and led a team of twenty-five people, and I was proud of the growth and positive change I saw in my employees.

Still, government work bored me. I was used to spending full 12-hour days engaged in challenging work, so in 2012, I decided to take a real shot at freelance editing. I knew I was good with grammar and spelling, I was well read, I had a background in English studies, and I was motivated to do well and get better. I convinced myself that I was good enough to do some entry-level work on the cheap. It would help me pay off my student loans, and keep me busy doing something productive.

I joined freelancer websites, set up posters all over my old campus, and I was surprised when the work rolled in steady. There was an appetite out there for my skillset, and though the money was less than good for a green freelancer, I loved perfecting writing, and my bargain-finding clients were thrilled with their return considering my starter rates. My confidence in my own work grew.

Then, after a few months of work on dissertations and essays, something strange happened. I was approached by a budding author at my old university who needed his full-length novel edited. It was a big project—nearly 150,000 words—and while it was daunting to look at, I took his Fantasy manuscript on with the full disclaimer that I had never edited a novel before. He said it would be easy—he’d already done five rewrites and had three people beta read it. Apparently, all three loved it! He told me it just needed polishing…that it would only need a straightforward proofread…

His novel was in such a brutal state that it almost needed another full rewrite. I found plot holes throughout the book, the characters were stale and their dialogue was flat, and after my first full read I immediately noticed how poorly it flowed. At the time, I didn’t have the editor vocabulary to expertly identify his issues, but I just knew the book was off. It frustrated me that I didn’t know why.

So, I started to read books on writing and editing, poured over blogs, and spent a full hour every night learning so I could help this author. I soon found out that he was telling instead of showing in his writing, that his chapters and scenes didn’t have proper beginnings, middles, and ends, and that his dialogue was hampered not by the actual dialogue, but by the overuse of adverbs in his dialogue tags. I felt like a doctor diagnosing his patient.

Six months and many manuscript versions later, I finished that first damnable project. By the time I was done with it, I thought we had a pretty good book on our hands. Not great, mind you, but I knew it was good.

More than anything, I learned that I loved the process. I loved how excited he was about the final product, and I found out how important collaborative creativity was in my day to day. In essence, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I spent the next four years working towards editing professionalism. I took several courses on Editing and Proofreading, accepted any work I could get my hands on, and finally, in 2016, I quit my safe government job and started my business: The Author’s Hand. Soon after, I flew to Asia, spent two years traveling and working abroad, while widening my skillset as I motorbiked through Vietnam and Cambodia.

Invigored by my new lifestyle, I started a small charity delivering soccer balls to the many impoverished villages in the area, and then flew to South America where I spent time in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia, building my business and hiring the best freelancers I could find from around the world. My business was growing, so I needed competent people to take on the increased inflow of work.

Finally, in 2019, I returned to Canada, where I’ve settled down in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to plant my roots. Since then, I’ve added a dog to my small family. His name is Bilbo, and he’s what the larger, dog-loving world calls a “Frug.” As for me, I just call him my truffle pig.

So, there you have it. That’s my origin story, tucked into 1,000 words. I’m sure it wasn’t what you expected, but anyone who slips into the creative world, whether on purpose or on accident, finds themselves leading the way on their very own unexpected journey.

Perhaps you’re next!

Someday, when you look back on your journey as an author, will you call it typical? Absolutely not. We all enter this world of books and words because something draws us to it. It’s almost like destiny, or fate, or perhaps it’s just stubborn motivation.

Whatever it is, I hope you take the leap like I did. And if you decide that you want to, then get in contact with me, and let’s chat about your dreams as an author and the future you envision for yourself.

Carry on and write!