How I found my book editor

An update on Bite-Sized Creativity

This is an update from my upcoming book Bite-Sized Creativity. My original goal was to publish the first draft of a chapter every month till I finished writing everything. Since I finished in the beginning of December (!!!), this post will instead be an update on the process.

“Writing a book isn't a bite-sized endeavour. But we can tackle it in bite-sized chunks.” -

Camilo Moreno-Salamanca

, in a book meeting we had just 22 hours ago.

I found my book editor overnight. It was simple: a WhatsApp text, a question, and a "yes" for an answer. But finding the right person took two years.

Initially, I didn't think I needed a book editor. I figured I'd just ask fellow Write of Passage alum folks for feedback. After finishing the first draft (and celebrating for one evening by posting a note on Substack), I sent the manuscript to 22 friends who volunteered to review it.

Within two days, messages and Google doc comments started coming in. Some friends tackled individual chapters, most didn't make it past the first two chapters (which I wrote last and considered the roughest), and one person read all 10,000 words.

The problem? The feedback went in every direction.

I quickly realized I needed a reliable guide to help me navigate these comments. That's when I thought of Camilo.

Through four cohorts of Write of Passage (and a 10-week semi-cohort called "Runway"), Camilo became my most frequent essay editor. His feedback shaped many of my published pieces, always striking that perfect balance between gentle parenting and straight shooter:

Here's one of his first comments, encouraging me to put more of myself into this essay about objective journalism:

I greatly enjoyed reading this piece as it mirrors a lot of my thoughts about the journalism business. This has a bit less "you" in it than previous stuff you've written, and while I don't think it detracts from the essay, you can probably add more of you in the page to make the piece more memorable. After all, this essay read more credible to me by virtue of you being someone who went to journalism school.

For my essay on journalist Kara Swisher, he proposed an entirely new structure:

Intro - A moment where something specific about what Kara did/said + your own observations made it plainly obvious that the news industry was in decadence.

Background on Kara - If you don't want to do any more research, I think you have enough of her trajectory here. However, it would be important to hone in on the significance of some of the things she did.

Lessons - Here is where you can repurpose a lot of the essay to frame it around lessons from Kara. This shouldn't require a lot of work because I think these are the lessons you are sharing that inspired you.

Conclusion - So now you've quit journalism? What is the path now? And how are you using Kara's inspiration and lessons to navigate life?

After a while, he felt comfortable enough to be completely candid about my essay originally titled "Brat Autumn":

My hunch is that you are anchoring on this term because it is in the zeitgeist and it makes for a killer title. But I think the word/idea “brat” is like when you put too much balsamic vinegar on a dish; it’s so pungent that overwhelms the palate and then you don’t really know what you are eating.

A few months before I started writing my book, I learned that Camilo had written one himself. His responses to my questions gave me the confidence to write my own.

Camilo is a smart, sharp, and sensible editor. A lot of the improvement in my essays can be attributed to his guidance.

But more importantly, we have a relationship that is fun and malleable. We're colleagues (as editors for Write of Passage), friends (he drops some bangers in the group chat), and we also have a writer-editor dynamic.

The ultimate factor in my deciding to message Camilo is that we vibe. I wouldn't trust feedback from a stranger on the internet. I needed someone who could be brutally honest without putting me down, someone who could push my writing when necessary, and someone who could help me modulate the wide range of feedback I had received.

So while Camilo's "yes" came overnight, finding him as my editor was a two-year journey. I just didn't realize it at the time. The same way I didn’t realize I was centralizing my essays around one idea at the time.

Writing a book is probably one of the most daunting things I will ever do. I’m so glad to have Camilo hold my writing hand to the finish line.

P.S. Camilo also happens to be open for business. In his words: "I am ready to work with companies and individuals who—in the age of ChatGPT-everything—are excited about the opportunity to not do that; opting for effective, delightful, and distinctively human content."

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Update log:

• 😂 Saw Irene Tu live! Along with several other Hong Kong comics: Jordan Leung, Mohammed Magdi, Annie Louey, and Vivek Mahbubani.

• 🏃‍♀️ Ran 2 x 5K in the past week. The cooler weather makes running outdoors a lot more pleasant.

• 🎧 Dipping back into one of my favorite podcasts, Beautiful/Anonymous. I sometimes pause listening to it in favour of more news-y episodes. I think I’ll catch up with the 6 months of backlog within the next Christmas week.

• 🛏️ Have been napping a lot. It feels restorative.

• 📺 Jin got me into another Thai GL show, 23.5.

• 💭 Taking steps towards a big-ish decision and instead of solely contemplating it (and spiraling) in my head, I’m leaning on friends who are a few steps ahead and can read the label from outside the bottle.

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