One of my favorite things to do when working on reports and proposals for corporate clients is to polish and smooth out the voices of many authors into one unified professional voice for the written work. I’m not quite sure what it is that has given me this interest (affliction?)—perhaps it is due to my love of voice and tone?—but I get great joy out of disentangling the various voices until the final product is something smooth and seamless.

In fact, I think this is probably one of the best things that a professional editor can offer a client (whether it’s an individual or a corporation): a polished voice. Even when only one person is working on a project, it is all too easy to allow one’s mood or distraction level to influence written work.

You save a work on the computer and only pick it back up when you’re a few hours or a few days (or more!) different. And who knows what can happen in that time? Maybe your kids actually moved at a normal human, non-snail pace that morning, and your good mood is irrepressible. Your writing may easily reflect that.

Or maybe your car that morning started making that pinging sound again and—holy cow, really? AGAIN?—your writing can easily be influenced by that distraction as well. Whatever the cause, your writing will benefit from someone else looking it over and evening it out.

And I hope that someone will be me. I do have a dorky word-nerd affliction to feed, after all.