[William] Shawn also recognized that no two writers are the same, like snowflakes and fingerprints. No one will ever write in just the way that you do, or in just the way that anyone else does.
Because of this fact, there is no real competition between writers. … Writing is a matter strictly of developing oneself. You compete only with yourself. You develop yourself by writing. An editor's goal is to help writers make the most of the patterns that are unique about them.
There are people who superimpose their own patterns on the work of writers and seem to think it is their role to force things in the direction they would have gone in if they had been doing the writing. Such people are called editors, and are not editors but rewriters … My advice is, never stop battling for the survival of your own unique stamp. An editor can contribute a lot to your thoughts but the piece is yours -and ought to be yours-if it is under your name.
-John McPhee, Draft No. 4, On the Writing Process