This Is the Story of an Editor

There is a part of me in every writer I publish.

There is a part of me in every writer I publish. At least things are said. It’s rough around the edges, but sometimes it’s good not to beat around the bush for three hours. Forgive me if I’ve shocked you.

I don’t have an explanation for why I wrote this story. Maybe it’s because I finally decided to invest in an excellent desk chair after more than fifteen years of suffering from back pain on a cheap crappy thing, and am therefore in excellent condition to enjoy my two favorite activities of the past few years: publishing writers, and writing.

Anyway, today I wanted to bare my soul about the way I run Scribe and work with writers, even if the word “work” is a bit disproportionate. But then again, I take everything so seriously here that it’s like work.

I run Scribe a bit like a publishing house

Since Scribe’s inception over five years ago, I have always viewed the publication as a publishing house of which I am the editor, in the sense that I select the writers and texts I choose to publish with the utmost care.

Perhaps you can understand why I wrote earlier that there is a part of me in every writer I publish. I could never, and probably never will be able to publish a story or poem that does not resonate with my inner self.

This is also the reason why I am so demanding and why I refuse many pieces that come to me. Not everything can provoke a high emotional response in me, as it does in all of us. And it has little to do with whether the piece is good or bad. I have to have a particular feeling, otherwise it’s not right.

My goal has never been and will never be for Scribe to become the publication with the most writers or the largest audience, which has absolutely no value to me. Imagine a publishing house that publishes every manuscript it receives! It would not make sense.

Of course, it makes some people unhappy, disappointed, and angry. But can this be avoided if we want to build something serious and offer quality reading? I don’t think so, and I also think it’s a blessing in disguise.

That is why I will continue to be the editor who chooses to publish words and writers following his heart, and above all his heart. This is the only way for me to keep moving in the right direction.

Through the silence

As a writer, or a man who writes, it’s less pretentious, I like to leave time for breathing or silence between the pieces I publish here on Medium. That’s the way I work. I feel like I need breaks to come back and be able to write stuff that I can live with.

I don’t write every day, I mean even outside of this platform, and even if I did, I don’t think I would systematically post my work online. I admire those who manage to write and post a successful piece every day, but I don’t think I can.

That’s probably why when I put on my editor’s outfit, I only publish about ten pieces on Scribe every day, sometimes less, sometimes more. There are even some days when no writing is published, and while that might make me panic, I have no problem with it.

I like that the publication is a place where time is slowed down and it’s good to linger on each text and writer that are put forward.

Where sometimes, silence is king, and something intense happens…

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams…”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

A huge thank you to all the wonderful writers with whom I live this incredible adventure and who in a way changed my life for the better.

For the others, just knock on the door: