Recently at work I was writing a brief for a possible public service announcement. My manager looked over what I wrote and said the word every writer both loves and hates to hear.

“You’re so close.”

I hate it because it means it’s not quite done. Writers are, fundamentally, lazy beings. I defy even the most perfectionist among my tribe to tell me that if someone who mattered (their editor, publisher, manager or wife) told them it was “good enough”, they wouldn’t sigh with relief and get on with better things, like making tea, or watching the latest episode of Mythbusters.

And yet, I love it because it means the piece of writing is at the state when those-who-matter get what I’m trying to do, but find that I need to do a little bit make it right.

The best editors I’ve worked with—and right now I’m working with two of the very best—are the people who figure out the strengths of the piece of writing and try to then try to build on those strengths. How can an argument be made more effectively? What details or lines of questioning are not being considered? What can be done to make the phrasing of something more persuasive? That’s not always an easy process—sometimes being so close means being far away from a solution. But it is worth the effort—and foregoing Mythbusters for a while.