Every writer needs an editor.

I’ve said it and believed since I got into journalism … a few years ago.

Feedback from loving family and kind friends does not constitute editing. Those wonderful people tend to look too kindly upon your flaws.

So I’m really pleased that Ken Lawrence – a Springfield writer whom I met over breakfast at ThrillerFest – invited me to join a new writer’s group that he and a half-dozen other northern Virginians started at the beginning of the year.

After watching them in action, I’m confident that I’ll get the editing I seek. To be clear, I really want the editing; that’s not to say I expect to enjoy it.

John Gilstrap, a published writer who lives down the Parkway in Burke, Virginia, told me recently that submitting your writing for criticism is like walking face-first into a moving propeller.

My flight leaves in mid-September.