Even in writing, the best defense is a good offense

About defense and offense, Wikipedia says (en.wikipedia.org):

"The best defense is a good offense" is an adage that has been applied to many fields of endeavor, including games and military combat. It is also known as the strategic offensive principle of war. Generally, the idea is that proactivity (a strong offensive action) instead of a passive attitude will preoccupy the opposition and ultimately hinder its ability to mount an opposing counterattack, leading to a strategic advantage.

In any war, in other words, strike first, and strike hard.

If you are a virtual assistant, learning from that, in writing something to be considered by others, you must present your best. You are always in a war (undeclared) – against your competitor, or against the standards of the virtual office.

In the image I show above, dated 21 December 2012, I was writing "Meetings & How To Conduct Them" because as a Board member, I saw that the Board members of the Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative in my hometown did not know how to conduct meetings using parliamentary procedures. They did not seem to believe me when I told them something like that. The best defense is a good offense – I decided to write something that we could discuss. So I came up with a very good list of what should be considered; the beginning of the list shows my best shots – the title was "Meetings & How To Conduct Them:"

Scheduling A Meeting
Starting & Ending
What Needs To Be Covered

Eventually I changed the title to "Nagkaisa Meetings" and wrote 1,253 words in all covering the topic. Being complete in itself makes your output your best shot.

In war, you have to come out with your best shot. In peace, actually it is much like you are fighting in a war – you are competing against others.

If you are a virtual assistant, you will want your work to be not only grammatically correct but more so persuasive, even attention-grabbing. You will need an author's editor.

I found online a short write-up on what role does an author's editor play (soundingboard.net):

The Author's Editor: Your first line of offense.

What is an author's editor?

Used by scientific writers for years, an author's editor is an experienced writer and copyeditor hired by the author to polish a manuscript before submission. This ensures less work rewriting for the author and for the publisher, as well as more control over the manuscript for the writer.

I say: That manuscript can be as short as one page or as long as 100 pages or even longer. Thus, as a virtual assistant, or someone applying to be one, your very first letter must be impressive. If you are not a writer yourself, you need someone to tell you whether your letter is impressive or not.

Why do you need an editorial service?

(In America), as more writers submit more manuscripts and media superstores phase out the mid-list books in favor of best sellers, publishers have more books to choose from for fewer slots. If you want to succeed in this market, your manuscript has to be competitive. 96% of editors surveyed by the Romance Writers of America would reject a promising manuscript for grammar errors that the publisher's editors don't have the resources to fix themselves. For the work that you put into writing your manuscript, doesn't it deserve to make it past the initial reading at a publishing house?

I say: Grammar errors are easy to spot by someone who has had much experience in editing work – I have had 42 years of writing and editing papers (technical language) and articles (popular).

Even if you simply write an article and submit it to the virtual office that needs it, you have to be competitive always – because that virtual office can choose not to hire you or discontinue to deal with you if you are a sloppy worker. You need an author's editor!

What does an (author's editor) do?

Traditionally, author's editors will help you analyze the overall plot, character development, dialogue, grammar, and any trends or recurring problems. A critique would not mark the manuscript itself, but would consist of several pages of manuscript analysis. A line edit would do this in detail, on the manuscript pages directly. Line edits also correct punctuation, spelling and format problems.

I say: The whole paragraph above describes what an author's editor do if you have written a book. Similarly, as your author's editor, to borrow from the above quote, I would work on what you have written, whether it's only one page or a great many pages, analyzing your output's coherence (overall plot), discussion (character development), internal subtle exchange of views (dialogue), grammar, and any trends or recurring problems. Ditto with punctuations, spelling and formats. 

And when the time comes, I would say so if you have become a good writer!