Yesterday my daughter told me her school was having a dress-in-the-career-you’re going-to-have day. She couldn’t decide whether to go as an artist, a crazy cat lady, or an editor.

“What do editors wear?” she asked.
“Bow ties,” I said.
“What do the girl editors wear?” she asked.
“Probably business casual,” I told her.
She wasn’t thrilled with this answer. I have some of those outfits but she didn’t want to go to school wearing my “old lady” clothes. “No one will know what I’m supposed to be,” she said.

I thought up the perfect solution for her. She went to school with a red pen tucked behind her ear(I told her to use it liberally)and a stack of rejection letters to hand out.

“You don’t have to wait for people to submit to you,” I said, “just go up and tell random people that you think they have no talent.”

Here is what her rejection letter said:

Dear Hopeful Writer,
Thank you for letting us consider your manuscript. After careful deliberation (we looked at it for several seconds) we have decided that your work doesn’t meet our stringent standards. (We all laughed ourselves silly.) We wish you all the best in your writing career. (Give up now and get a job at Burger King.)

Sincerely,
The editor

When my daughter came home from school, I asked her if she handed out all the rejection slips.

“Yeah,” she said. “And I wished I’d brought more to give out.”

Yep, she nailed being an editor.