[Prestidigitweeze]

Professionally, I've been an editor for over a decade. I do still write fiction and music, but less often than I'd prefer.

I've always remembered W.H. Auden's advice: every writer should have a good gardener. He meant that the editor/proofreader in the writer's head should be good.

Metaphorically, though, I don't think of proofreading or editing as gardening. If I still wrote stanzas that needed trimming, perhaps I would.

I prefer to think of my internal proofreader as a text janitor whose task is to clean up after an incomprehensible idiot (i.e., me).

I tend to proofread myself with faux annoyance: "What mental jawbreakers did the imbecile inflict on readers this time?"

I've played that game of solitaire charades since high school and it always makes the task more amusing for me.