I've published well over 150 articles, yet I still appreciate a good editor making sense of my writing. It's the ones who nitpick for no good reason other than to mark their territory that drive me nuts.

Glad you had a great vacation! Welcome back. 🙂

Sometimes as writers and editors, we just have to accept that some clients are hard-headed or too proud to admit they are wrong. It's hard to swallow, especially when we can't use the clip, as Paula mentioned, or potential clients might look badly upon our work when our name is attached. But I agree that sometimes it's better for one's sanity to let it go and drop the client. I value sanity very highly these days, so I do what I can to reason and persuade, but I'll let it go if there's no getting through.

Sorry I've been MIA lately. I was on vacation, and I really needed to disconnect. It was heavenly!

Jake, I've heard that from other writers, too. And it is ironic that Dr. Freelance has that opinion. LOL I tend to walk away more often these days myself.

Paula, I'm a HUGE abuser of the em dash! It's funny how we get our favorites. I'm trying to break myself of it. Tough, but I'm working on it.

Damaria, you had a good client. Some will hear you read it and either not hear that it's awkward or won't admit it. Stupid. We're trying to make them look good. Just once I'd love to be trusted to do my job!

As to what to do with client inaccuracies, I've usually corrected the copy and sent it back. There is a client I went through the text with, reading it out to her. She got it when she realised that her changes made the flow awkward.

Early on I had that duo of non-editor editors that I've mentioned before. They butchered every piece of copy every writer turned in and threw in several cliches per article (headlines were almost always lame puns). I complained to no avail, telling them how badly their puns reflected on the magazine, and how I would never be able to use any of those articles as clips. They didn't care. They were men. They were editors. They knew what they were doing. Poor little writer girl Paula had no clue. Right.

I admit it: I overuse dashes. Before I turn in copy I glance to see if I've used a distracting number of dashes. If so, I'll clean up a few sentences. I guess I just like the drama of dashes. Strangely enough, I'm related to an English teacher who abuses semi-colons. Yes, she uses them correctly, but honestly, how many times do you tend to see a semi-colon in an entire article, let alone one paragraph? This teacher will use five semi-colons in a brief note written in a Christmas card. That draws unwanted attention and creates an urge to edit, edit, edit. Makes me wonder if her students have gone on to overuse semi-colons, too…

In my old age, I've become reluctant to argue much about anything with clients. Your reasoning in "Walk away" is precisely why.