You’ve got words. You’re somewhere between starting out and half way along your writing journey and it’s time to talk – with a supportive expert to guide you. You need a sounding board, coach, teacher, editor. You’ll want to talk about any or all of structure, voice, grammar, beginnings and endings, ethical/legal issues, target audience, and more. You’ll be writing, finishing, or planning to write, creative non-fiction, memoir, (auto)biography, history, journalism, blog posts, short fiction, and work that defies categorisation.
I love listening to and then (and only then!) talking with writers at any stage of their journey, to help them learn about their strengths, and how to build on them. But I don’t want to do it forever, so the goal is for you to leave our time together as a more autonomous writer and self-editor. We can work together through coaching or editing, or both.
Coaching
During our one-to-one online coaching sessions I’ll ask questions, listen hard, discuss tips and tactics to help move your writing forward, and send you summary notes afterwards.
To get started, feel free to email me with any questions and I’ll try to answer them. I’ll also reply with details of my fees and suggested days/times for our session. I’m available at all sorts of times including some evenings, but I need a couple of weeks’ notice. The session will be via my Teams link, and you can join as a guest without having a Teams account. You might want to book a one-off session to start with, after which we can discuss discounted rates for booking a series.
With your email please attach a 500-word (maximum) sample of your work as a Word document to help me get to know you in advance. It could be an extract, a plan, an outline, a rough draft, etc, and there is no need to sweat over it.
Editing
My editing service is similarly bespoke and flexible. Traditionally, there are three approaches to editing: 1. structural/development (big picture stuff); 2. line editing (sentence-by-sentence attention); 3. proof-reading (final stage of polishing and error-spotting). I’m happy to stick with that structure, but it’s expensive for you and I’m just as interested in working more holistically, guiding writers through the editing process towards the goal of self-editing. Just email me with a brief summary of what you are writing, and how you want an editor to help, and we can work out the best approach. I’m happy to talk on the phone if you wish.
My experience and qualifications
I’m educated (in history and journalism) to PhD level. I’ve edited thousands of newspaper pages, taught hundreds of journalism students, and co-written a history book. Since retiring from most of that I’ve written a novel, won prizes for short fiction, and have taken on pro-bono work as a mentor and as an editor of a history journal. In the meantime I’ve found myself being asked to look over people’s writing, and it’s turned into a modest and agreeable business.
Are we a match?
Definitely, if you are writing non-fiction such as histories, memoirs, (auto) biographies, travel tales, blog posts, features, profiles, reflections etc whether short or long. I’ve edited work ranging from artist profiles to an entire book about the security industry, so I’m comfortable with most subjects. When it comes to fiction I’ve had some success with my own short stories, so I’m happy to help with those, and I’ve also just edited my debut novel, which is currently circulating with agents. It mostly depends on what you need so try me, and if I can’t help I’ll say so because I’m not interested in blagging my way to a huge client list. I prefer working with a small number of clients who will really get something out of the experience.
What I can’t/don’t/won’t work with: children, school and university essays, advertising, propaganda, lies, filth.