I’m tapped out. My weekly column is due, and the tank is empty.

At least, this time, it’s for a good reason.

I’ve been sandwiched between three other writers, playing copy editor and devil’s advocate for the last few weeks, and while it has been a joy to see my kids putting words to paper, I could also cheerfully never see another computer screen again, ever.

G is in the midst of writing college application essays and short answers. I’ve already talked about the differences between his and A’s approach to completing applications, but the essay editing took things to a whole new level.

A, much like me, is a “word dumper.” He gets everything he could possibly ever want to say out on paper and then starts pruning things down and reordering them.

I understand this process well, and most of our fights were about which things needed to go, and which things needed to stay. If A had a 14-page paper due in two weeks, he would write approximately 1.5 pages per day and save the last three days for editing, turning in a masterpiece that had been picked over many times.

G, on the other hand, is a man of few words, choosing quality over quantity. G also works things out in his head and then only after the thoughts have been distilled over a few days’ time does he put the survivors on paper.

It is difficult for me to edit. I want all the words. When I see that he’s only used 450 out of 600 available words, I want 150 more pieces of the puzzle. G is adamant that I will not get them.

And then, we get to E. She is taking her first Advanced Placement class this year, as well as another English class that requires a lot of writing.

E’s problem is that her hands don’t type as quickly as her brain turns out great ideas. While her typing is getting better, I’m not sure it will ever catch up with how quickly she throws out ideas. As a result, she sometimes ends up with incomplete thoughts or extremely meandering sentences. She’s still learning a lot about how to write and find her own voice.

That’s where it gets tricky for me. When she asks for help, I am wary of inflicting too much of my style and expectations on her and pushing her to write like I do.

I clearly remember a little drawing that she did when she was in kindergarten where she drew herself with a little note pad, and the caption said, “When I grow up, I want to be a journalist, like my mom.” Writing, yes! “Just like her mom?” I know she has the potential to be much better than I am.

Since reading about America’s falling literacy rates, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to how much my kids are reading. Both of the high school kids are doing copious amounts of reading for school, including novels and classic literature.

But writing goes hand in hand with reading, and I’m extremely pleased to see that all three of them put pen to paper quite regularly, regardless of how frustrating the whole process is for me.

A is currently working on a unique project for school, assembling a narrative that will eventually be made into a YouTube video as part of a student series.

He encountered a unique problem in the course of putting his piece together. Writing his story alone was one situation, but writing it for eventual performance added a whole other layer of worrying about flow and cadence. It was a terrific challenge for him.

G’s feedback on most of his writing is that it needs to include more of himself in it. It’s not something he’s comfortable doing, but it has added a layer of authenticity to his work that takes it to the next level.

E is still figuring things out, but I love seeing her eyes light up when she gets positive feedback on her writing from a teacher, or even better, when I read something she’s written and have “no notes.”

I remember that Steve, too, did his share of writing for various hunting publications, and I feel silly for not predicting the inevitable.

Now, if I can just get one of them to write up a few columns for me.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News