After finishing King's "On Writing", I found myself agreeing with many of his ideas and questioning others. I really enjoyed his ideas about editing one's own work. Having the willpower to leave a fully finished draft of a novel in a drawer for three months takes an immense amount of talent. I sometimes edit by reading backwards, but my memory still automatically seems to correct certain errors, and, therefore, I miss them. By ignoring a finished work for so long, one begins to forget what they wrote, and, ultimately, one is able to become their own soul-twin (as King calls it).
I do, however, somewhat disagree with King's theory of an "ideal reader". Particularly, I would not want my reader to be personally attached and connected to me. This is because I do not want my editor to have a biased opinion, which I think is extremely difficult and not as easy as King says. Moreover, I definitely could not see myself watching someone that was close to me edit my work. It would be complete torture. It seems much more practical and realistic to find someone who you are not close with to assist you in this process. If they love it then they love it. If they hate it then they won't hesitate to tell you.
Additionally, people are generally attracted to each other because they share some sense of common ground. Therefore, having your identical soul-twin edit your writing is almost like editing it yourself. As a writer, I think it's more helpful to have someone completely opposite to your way of thinking read your work, because they represent the other half of the reader population. An editor shouldn't "know what one means", and I feel as though an ideal reader that is closely related to the writer would more easily understand what the writer meant because they understood them on a general and basic level. This would get in the way of true editing.