Essays on the editing road

Thirty years ago, 1984, I became an editor for the first time-the editor of a travel magazine and the official editor of a national official publication. Twenty-eight years later, I worked as an editor and a network editor at Yanyu Red Dust Station and Jiangshan Station. For me, these two experiences as an editor are completely different.

1984, when I was the manager of a freight company in Chongwen District Labor Service Company in Beijing, the travel magazine openly recruited editors in the newspaper office. I refused the position with good status at that time and the retention of the propaganda minister of Chongwen District Committee. I resolutely participated in the recruitment of the magazine, and stood out from the competition of many applicants until I was finally hired as an editor by the magazine.

Although I was admitted to the Correspondence College of China Renmin University, majoring in Chinese, I went to school while working, but after all, I didn't work as an editor. Pick up the manuscript and don't know what to do with it. When I meet celebrities and articles with profound cultural connotations, I am even more dumbfounded. Lian Bi dare not move. How can this be good? Although our business vice president is the editor of Zhonghua Book Company, it is impossible for him to take all the manuscripts away. What should we do? Besides listening to the chief editor's lectures and reading books on editing, we have to revise the author's articles over and over again. You can't change the author's work yet. You should first write the editor's notes on paper, then correct them over and over again, and then send them to the editor-in-chief for him to have a look to see if there are any omissions or mistakes. First of all, we should do the most basic editing work, such as the correction of typos, the confirmation of titles, the inspection of punctuation marks, and the collocation of paragraphs in articles. Then we should further investigate the higher-level editing work, such as the content, conception, expression and artistic conception of the article, and the more advanced is the translation and proofreading of ancient Chinese.

At that time, there were not many phenomena in which the author made two contributions to one manuscript, but we could not let it go. If you are not sure, you have to look up books or even go to Beijing Library. Where is this? You can find it with Baidu search. Once, I stayed in Beijing Library for a long time in order to consult an ancient prose of the Five Dynasties. At that time, there was no canteen in Beitu, and I was hungry and thirsty until I understood this article and translated it correctly.

Our travel magazine was one of the few travel magazines in Beijing at that time, which was responsible for introducing tourist attractions, transportation, accommodation, shopping, entertainment, humanities, food, religious beliefs, currency exchange, national geography, people in the tourism industry, travel codes, tourist hotels, travel agencies, tourist routes, scenic spots, etc., covering a wide range and requiring travel editors. I got the article "Worry about Tourist Hotels" in Wu Tong, which I wrote in my spare time by interviewing and consulting materials. This article was also listed as a learning document by the National Tourism Directors' Working Conference. Thinking through kickbacks, I wrote it on 1986, recommended by the Propaganda Department of Beijing Municipal Committee, and published it in Beijing Daily, the organ newspaper of Beijing Municipal Committee.

The success of a magazine depends on its content and form, and the content of a magazine mainly depends on whether there are big stars in your magazine to support it. At first glance, readers will not pay for the works of authors or stars in this issue. In the past, our magazines were generally published naturally, and there were not many special articles. Therefore, the quality of magazines is greatly restricted. Later, we let go of our courage and began to walk out of the editorial department and collect honey in the vast world.

Our magazine is a combination of editing and editing, and the editor is also a reporter. We all have press cards issued by the State Press and Publication Administration. You can interview celebrities, writers, foreigners and so on, and you can draft with them. Later, manuscripts and interviews became the main tasks of our editing work.

For drafting, I interviewed Shan Shiyuan, president of the Palace Museum, Weng Ouhong, a famous playwright, a famous composer, Liu, a famous Chinese actor and coach of the national gymnastics team, Xu Yuchuan, a famous director of Beijing Peking Opera Theatre, and Huang Boshou, a famous choreographer of China opera. We climbed the Mutianyu Great Wall with famous writers, Han and Chen. As luck would have it, I just published an absurd novel in a famous newspaper that day. Chen appreciated it and introduced me to the Chinese Writers Association. I'm really a stupid thing, turning such a good chance of falling pie into a deaf ear. I just wanted to get their masterpiece in my hand as soon as possible, and I didn't think about it at all.

I host a signature column in the editorial department called "Talking about Beijing". Because the editing and publishing unit of travel magazines is in Beijing, this column is very heavy. If you write about Beijing, you can hold up half of the magazines. I think it is impossible to find some famous scholars and writers to write about Beijing. They all have their own jobs Writing for you is just an obligation. Writing is human nature, and it is understandable not to write. I began to look down and asked talented workers and social people with certain research expertise in the author group to write about Beijing's historical evolution, customs and slang, especially Beijing's turret column. This is a story that readers don't know but want to know. I invited them to the editorial department to discuss the idea of the article. I invited Feng Qili, a worker and writer. He is an expert in the study of famous cemeteries in Beijing. He knows the tombs of the Eight Heavenly Kings and princesses. Every rest day, he will go to these cemeteries to collect wind and write very touching stories. Jin Daochun, another Manchu worker, is a descendant of the Qing royal family and is full of fresh knowledge of cultural relics. I asked him to write some stories about the Qing royal family. He is now the first expert in naming people in Beijing. He founded the first name store "Qimingxuan" in Beijing. There is also a former tour guide of Baiyunguan and a Beijing educated youth Yin. After returning to Beijing, he became an excellent commentator through hard work. After being transferred to the Lama Temple, he worked harder, wrote many official histories and anecdotes about the Lama Temple, and published The Legend of the Lama Temple. With the joining of these authors, the column "Talking about Beijing" presided over by me has achieved remarkable results and won the "Outstanding Column Award of Beijing Excellent Journals".

It is very important to make a good publication. Of course, "sensational" is not gossip or anecdotes about celebrities, but to mobilize the emotions of readers and event stakeholders and let them actively participate in the articles you reported. To this end, I have engaged in two bigger and more influential activities. First, I interviewed Baoyi Wang, the pioneer of Yesanpo, Hebei Province, and wrote a reportage "The Man Who Caught the Golden Pigeon", which was widely publicized by Laishui County Tourism Bureau. The second article is an interview with Zhong Huasheng, the founder of Zhuhai's first peasant resort. In addition to publishing reportage in China Entrepreneur magazine, she also participated in the "National Baitenghu News Award". These two activities formed a lively scene of "Zhong Huasheng in the south and Wang in the north", which set off a craze for farmers to run tourism.

He also directly participated in the "Sixteen Scenes Selection of New Beijing" and was fortunate to be one of the judges of this event. In the old days, there were "Eight Scenes of Yanjing" in Beijing, but after liberation, especially after the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, great changes have taken place in Beijing's tourist attractions and architectural image, and the old "Eight Scenes of Yanjing" was no longer suitable for the city image at that time. At this time, Mr. Chen (son of Marshal Chen Yi), Chairman of China International Cultural Exchange Center, cooperated with this magazine to organize the "Sixteen Scenes Selection of New Beijing". In addition to the old scenic spots, new scenic spots such as Mutianyu Great Wall and Black Dragon Pool were added to the selection results. This activity not only opened up a new landscape for tourism in the suburbs of Beijing, but also greatly increased the circulation of our magazine.

When we were editors, it looked beautiful, but in fact, it was also "donkey dung and eggs are bright." Our salary is the same as that of ordinary people, and there is almost no money subsidy. In particular, our travel expenses were very tight at that time, and the travel expenses were fixed. The extra part had to be paid by ourselves. It seems that only 15 yuan can reimburse accommodation and 15 yuan meals. I work as a cashier in the Corps, so I work as an accountant every time I go on a business trip. No matter where you go, you must first find a hotel to stay. But1Where can I stay in a one-day hotel in 5 yuan? I took the contact map and found the hotel manager who had participated in the tourism work conference, explaining that I would go to your place for an interview, but I could only reimburse the room rate 15 yuan. Can the manager make it convenient? The bosses are all people on the scene. We are journalists from Beijing. How can you not give this face? So wherever we go, we have to stay in a five-star hotel, and the room is only 15 yuan, without exception.

On one occasion, I interviewed the Silk Road with Art editor from the editorial department. I went home when I thought of Urumqi, because there was only air ticket money left for Urumqi to return to Beijing. However, how can you be regarded as having been to Xinjiang without having been to Kashgar, the legendary city in the westernmost part of Xinjiang? The problem is that to go to Kashgar, we have to fly, and the round-trip ticket is equal to our ticket back to Beijing. In other words, I went to Kashgar and couldn't go back to Beijing; If you want to return to Beijing, you can't go to Kashgar. In order to solve this dilemma, we visited the propaganda director of Xinjiang Tourism Bureau. In Urumqi Hotel, after the three of us drank three bottles of Ilite Qu, the minister gave us a good idea: "Never mind, you can go to Kashgar. When you return to Urumqi on the day of Eid al-Adha, I will take you to see the tourism director of Xinjiang." Just bring two Jin of apricots. Go and congratulate him on a happy holiday. As soon as he is happy, he will give you a ticket! " We went to the door with a feeling of anxiety to congratulate the director on the holiday. Sure enough, the director agreed happily, and the problem of our air tickets to Beijing was solved so easily.

At that time, we earned very little. I hope we can break a penny in half. One of our female editors went to Guilin with us for an interview and wanted to buy a bottle of Guilin sufu. Guilin sufu is one of the three treasures in Guilin, which is very famous. For the first time, our female editor saw a store selling a bottle of 1.2 yuan. She was afraid it would be expensive, so she asked us gentlemen to follow her for a few blocks. The cheapest one in other stores also needs a bottle of 1.25 yuan. So, she left us in the street and went to the store selling a bottle of 1.2 yuan, which kept us waiting for nearly an hour!

I worked as an editor of the official national journal for less than ten years, and then I became a freelancer, making a living by code words, planning and advertising. This time is about ten years. However, I haven't left to write an article for more than ten years. From 20 1 1, I became fascinated with online writing, registered several websites to publish articles at once, and won a small prize for online literature creation. From 20 12, I was hired as the editor of the essay group by a station, and this year, I was hired as the editor by the Wu Tong Society. Thus began my second editing career.

To tell the truth, there is a great difference between the editing of online literature and the editing of paper media publications.

The first is the difference in editing threshold.

Editors of online literature do not need to undergo rigorous examination and training, as long as they are in the circle of presidents of literary societies. Editors are usually authors of society. To put it bluntly, some editors need to have a good temper and learn the basic skills of editing. At the very least, "de, de, de" should distinguish users, use punctuation accurately, correct typos in the author's article, and the title of the article should be accurate.

Secondly, online editing doesn't need to solicit contributions, only you need to edit the article after others have published it. However, since our editors are all authors, we don't need any contributions or contributions. Writing a manuscript or editing a manuscript depends entirely on consciousness. Therefore, there is a difference between an excellent editor and an ordinary editor. A good editor can edit one or two hundred articles a month, and can do almost every word. Paper editors don't have such a big workload.

Network editing is completely voluntary service, without any remuneration. Therefore, I said that net weaving is great, and it is completely igniting myself and illuminating others. It is rarely heard that online editing can achieve the same popularity as teacher Ye Shengtao. Network editors generally have their own jobs, and basically use their spare time to edit manuscripts. Because many online authors have an illusion that online articles have a low threshold and can be published. As long as they press the publish button, the article can become their own work. Therefore, it has brought great difficulties to the editing work. Some articles are only two or three hundred words long. Some articles were ridiculed to the end; Some articles are thousands of words, but I don't know what the author means. What is more difficult to deal with is that some authors do not meet the standards of fine works, but complain that editors don't understand goods and lines, and even insult editors for this. These editors have to bear it silently, and not many people can fully understand their grievances.

When writing this article, I felt ashamed because I didn't meet the standard of qualified editor. It has been five months since he logged into Jiangshan on March 17 this year and was hired as an editor by Wu Tong. But the number of articles I edited is only 57, with an average of only 10 per month. Compared with the editors of Wutong, such as Jiangnan Tieying, Bing Ling, Shao Ning, Chan Ruo Jin Shu, Feng Dan drunk late, picking stone bridges and so on, I am far behind. Although my blood pressure has been as high as 237 twice, and there are also "unspeakable" reasons such as diabetes, the most important thing is that I have lost my energy in those years. I will take good care of myself and catch up with these good editors slowly.

The author is delighted to see that Mr. Zhao Xinghua, the chief designer of Jiangshan, put forward that "online literature will be recognized by more and more people, and digital publishing will gradually replace traditional paper media." Such a lofty goal requires all our editors to redouble their efforts, guard against arrogance and rashness, and become a qualified online literature editor as soon as possible!