Genius is not a strong enough word for her talents as writer and mentor…. She makes us do things we think we can’t…. and gets writers to their own truth, their original, idiosyncratic thinking.  And, of course, there is the line, word by word, the liturgy of the line.  She makes it holy.
–Julianne Ortale, author of How Sin is Unsaid, Dialogues and a Story.

A wonderful option for writers who wish to work intensively and individually with a writing coach. Sessions are two-hours in length and in that time we generally go over, in a super in-depth way, 20-25 pages.  But it is also fine if you bring in one paragraph.  Or even just an idea.  In those cases, I will give you some writing exercises, and we’ll be surprised at what we’ll discover and clarify. I can give you tips on how to set up your life to support your desire to write– your time, your space, your social life, etc. We can set short and long term goals. Most writers come with pages. Some with 10 pages. But there is no “right” amount. It all works.  It all matters!

I’m also flexible with the level of work you bring. I welcome beginning or published writers, educated or not. You can bring  excerpts from various sections of a heavily workshopped manuscript that you hope is on its last re-write or you can bring in notes on napkins that don’t even make sense to you, except that they matter somehow.  I don’t care.  It is all valuable.  We will just start where you are.  It is all exciting to me. I am very adept at dropping in anywhere and tracking.

As to my method: when you research other writing coaches/editors, you’ll find 99% of them work in 1 of 3 areas. Either “Developmental Editing” or “Copy Editing” or “Proofing.” Developmental is like the organs of the human body. Heart, lungs, brain, etc.  What’s the story about?  Are the characters interesting?  What’s at stake? Copy editing is like the skin. It’s the surface. It’s the language itself.  Are there words you use over and over again, driving the reader nuts?  Are you using cliches? Is the dialogue set up on the page correctly? Does it reveal character rather than just moving plot along, boring your reader? What about grammar? Proofing is simple. It’s like spell-check but the editor notices context much better than spell-check.

In our one-to-one sessions I will be pointing out things on all 3 editing levels at once–developmental, copy and proofing. This is how I edit because this is how I think.  It’s also how I read and select work to read.  Truth is, all three editing levels are intrinsically related to each other.

We experience this all the time in “real life.”  When we first see a person we automatically assume there is a relationship between the surface (clothing that is ragged or clean, skin that is radiant or grey) and what is going on with that person (job loss or promotion, health or illness, etc). It’s our nature to assume a connection.  So in our sessions we will look at your work in the same way.  And on the level of developmental, copy and proofing, we’ll ask, What is marvelous in these pages?  What is weak?  How can we maximize the marvelous?  How can we strengthen the weak?

As a result you will leave each session with lots to think about.  If you take a look at my own novels or my writing about art, if you glance at the published reviews of my work or at the testimonials from clients on this site, you’ll see the same thing everywhere: my curiosity about the bigger issues and my poetic sensibility on the level of language are always mentioned.  The two, together, are hallmarks of my own work both as a writer and as an editor and writing coach. So I practice what I preach!  (Did you cringe at that cliche? Please say yes! 🙂 Just seeing if you’re still here….)

       As a side note, see the Editing page for information about a First Pages Workshop.

It’s easy to begin.  Contact me here.  Tell me a bit about where you are in your process and what you’re looking for.  Suggest your time frame.  Schedule a session that fits your schedule and mine. Come to SF or we’ll do it by phone. There is no obligation to commit to future sessions, although I’ve never actually had a writer come only once. Still, that’s the liberty here.  We’ll do a 2 hour session. Subsequent sessions can be 2, 3, or 4 hours. Most writers stick with 2-hour. And most meet once per month. But every two-weeks or every 6 weeks are also options.  For Bay Area writers, we’ll meet in the Financial District of SF, adjacent to the Montgomery BART stop.

Talk to you soon!  And good writing!

My Tuesdays with Mary let me dig deeper and write more honestly… and perhaps become more humane, more compassionate, even in the real world.
–Madeleine G.