Editing my words away

I had my first subbing session today - which consisted of picking a short article apart and then making a 200 word document into 50 words. The first piece was a bit of a mess - over complicated sentences, ridiculous repetition and redundant adjectives. Of course, I didn't pick up all this at first read. But, with a little push in the right direction from Angela, it soon became clear.

I could pick up the basic grammatical errors, but there were some spellings mistakes and more fundamental errors (specific to the context) that I didn't find. Having said that, we only had ten minutes to do the exercise and I'm not the fastest of readers. I got a lot out of the exercise, but I still think I'm going to struggle with the editing exam next week. It's the subjectiveness of the process, what's to say one word should be given precedence above another? Authors often don't even bother to acknowledge their editors comments and carry on regardless. I'd imagine it's a hard job, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes to pick up on mistakes without questioning yourself.

The other brief was for an advert for a glassblowing shop in Islington. We had to decide what to chop in order to minimise the word count - without affecting the continuity of the piece. This was very difficult. In the time that we had, we struggled to find the tone without compromising. But Angela hinted to us where the words could be cut, and we finished at 49 words.

I don't think I'd get on as an editor, I'm too indecisive. It would probably hurt my brain, debating what to change, what to keep and what the hell the author was thinking using all those bloody useless adjectives...