Check your ego at the door

One interesting comment I found in the Kamiya piece, was the bit about what writing is in regards to the relationship between writer and editor. Kamiya writes “In an odd way, the exchange between writer and editor encapsulates the process of growing up. The act of writing is godlike, omnipotent, infantile. Your piece is a statement delivered from on high, a pronouncement ex cathedra, as egotistical and unchecked as the wail of a baby. Then it goes out into the world, to an editor, and the reality principle rears its ugly head. You are forced as a writer to come to terms with the gap between your idea and your execution—and still more deflating, between your idea and what your idea should have been.”
The above comment is especially true when one considers the enormous amount of love and hate thrown around between authors and their editors. It seems every writer has both a love story and a horror story for their editors. Jack Kerouac for example, sat on the manuscript for On the Road for seventeen years before it was published. Thomas Wolfe on the other hand, had a completely dependent relationship with his second editor, allowing him to edit or change vast chunks of prose into whatever he liked.
Strange. It seems there should be an easier way to have a better working relationship between an editor and an author. If only money and artistic vision were not up for grabs.