Tales and Lessons from My First Editor and an Accidental Editor
Former 99U Editor-in-Chief Matt McCue and me co-presenting a session during AdobeMax 2016 in San Diego.
Have you ever been reading one of your favorite publications and thought to yourself, “I know the perfect interviewee who would be great for their audience…and perhaps I could write it?”
Back in 2016, this was my story. I would read 99U - Adobe’s former magazine and event series to help creatives supercharge their work and make their ideas happen - and while I loved it, I felt diverse voices of all stripes were missing.
So, I worked up the courage to pitch the editor. As I drafted up an e-pitch with two solid ideas, I kept reminding myself, “Remember, if the editor gets back to you and greenlights either of your ideas, you’ve got to write the piece, okay?”
The next morning, I hit ‘send’ and felt pretty proud. At the time, I was serving as the inaugural Communications and Marketing Manager (Part-Time) at the Maryland Women’s Business Center. This was a contract position, so I had flexibility to explore other pursuits. And as a Sociology major who stumbled headfirst into the communications field – learning on the job and never looking back – I thought, “Why not add a contributing writer title and ‘feather’ to my hat?”
The next day at work, I kept checking and refreshing my email, only to find the same old promotions or a daily chainmail forwarded message from my lovely Aunt. But on Wednesday, there was an email from Matt McCue. His editor had rejected my two story ideas and he was explaining the rationale.
At the end of his message, he stated, “I am sorry about that, but if you’d still like to discuss more story ideas, I’d like to have a brainstorming call to hone in on other stories we can work on. Let me know your thoughts.”
I’m never one to be discouraged and I was genuinely grateful for the opportunity to collaborate and write, so I replied, “Yes!” The first piece I wrote for 99U was “Why Every Visual Artist Should be a Great Storyteller,” and over the months, Matt was my assigned editor for any of my pitches that were green lit. From then-college student Dominic Grijalva who scored a design commission from the director of Hamilton and Delphine Diallo on chance encounters and photography to self-taught artist Daniel Oduntan on being dyslexic and the benefits of taking the longer route and Aoi Yamaguchi on breaking from tradition as a master calligrapher, among others.
We continued to work through and on multiple stories, and eventually, Matt became 99U’s Editor-in-Chief.
I continued to pitch profile interviews and sometimes one would stick, other times, one wouldn’t. Over time, Matt invited me to participate and speak at Adobe Max’s Annual Conference in San Diego, and one of my writing highlights was when he assigned me to interview former president Barack Obama’s White House photographer, Pete Souza! This was not only an interview of a lifetime, but I was struck by Souza’s work ethic – especially when he said in eight years, he only took three, one-week vacations.
So you can imagine my horror when I thought the audio didn’t save during our interview. I remember jumping up onto my kitchen countertop and feeling my heart ping and my belly drop. I thought to myself, “What am I going to do? You heard the man and his work ethic and schedule. If you’ve accidentally deleted the audio, tough sh*t. He doesn’t have time to re-record.” I also thought of my editor. “My goodness. Matt just assigned me this huge profile piece and my recorder didn’t record? What am I going to do?” So, I took a deep breath and hit ‘play’ on my voice recorder. To my sweet sweet ears, I heard our voices, and I let out a yelp. (Here’s a reenactment of this moment. Thankfully, I lived to share it.)
While I was beyond grateful that I had the audio and was able to complete the piece, I was confident that between the professional relationship that I’d built with Matt and the various complicated edits, feedback sessions, and sometimes complete re-writes that we’d worked through – we’d be able to work through this as well if necessary.
And we’d work through this challenge just as we worked through each piece: with respect, laughter, creativity, and collaboration.
A healthy and productive editor and writer relationship should push the writer and the story to be the best it can be, first and foremost.
Conversely, my brother, Jonah Batambuze, multidisciplinary, self-taught artist and Founder of Blindian Project, has been one of my best editors, and he’s truly an accidental editor. Over the years, he’s piloted various projects from KampInd to The Blindian Project that required him to learn how to write a press release, e-pitch or media advisory. Given my communications background and the fact that he’s my brother, I gladly mentored him across the pond in England to learn the ins and outs of drafting basic communications materials.
Funny enough, Jonah’s skills began to sharpen, and I started sending him MY drafts to review before sending them to Matt to make sure they made sense. He was my first and safest testing ground. And interestingly enough, even though my brother is four years older than me and we’ve often lived on different continents, we were raised in the same household with the same parents and share the closest thing I can imagine ‘twin brain’ feeling like. So, what this looks like in drafts is the feedback or tracked comments that Jonah will include are often the exact doubts or hesitations I was considering, but wanted to test for feedback first.
Other times, our sibling point of reference can prove easier in backing up a point. Something as random as: “Typhoon Lagoon, Dad in the Tsunami pool” requires no translation with him.
But, in all honesty, a good editor is someone who you can share your ugly as ever, rough first draft, and know that they have your best interest at heart, period. Any question, comment, suggested strike through or deep cut is offered out of service to make the story engaging and clearer.
A good editor allows you to receive the draft back with markups, and instead of perceiving your first draft as a failure, it’s more of a, “Let me see how the story resonated with them and what made sense and what sparked more questions?”
If your editor leaves you feeling energized and even intrigued by how they understood the piece, they’re challenging you to be more specific for the reader.
So,I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again. As much as I complain about how my brother annoys me, he’s truly one of my favorite editors because he challenges me to become a better writer through every suggested edit and comment. Thank you.
What do you enjoy most about the collaborative writing process?
Before I go, here’s what I’m thinking about:
Podcasts I’m listening to: “CultureCon Uncut: Jay Ellis - Overcoming the Fear of Success”, “Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air: Langston Kerman on ‘Bad Poetry’” and Matthew Dicks: How to Tell a Story so That Everyone Listens [The Knowledge Project Ep. #202]
Hispanic Heritage Month campaign to watch: Hello Updo’s love letter to our GOOD HAIR, our PELO BUENO
What I’m reading: The Creative Factor
Quote I’m pondering: "The measure of excellence is judged by your commitment to your work.~ Phylicia Rashad
