Workshops to Usher Our Hearts' Imaginings to the Page
Enter the joyful, freeing practice of guiding your writing from draft to polished vision.
Over my 20-year editing career, patterns tripping writers up emerged. When, in my own writing, I saw the same tendencies that kept authors from getting the creations in their minds and hearts onto the page, I was intrigued. I experimented. And the prompts and exercises that help authors I edited see their visions through also opened up my own works in progress. I turned them into worksheets and thus was born the Be Your Own Editor workshops.
Each workshop
Shares “faulty” patterns that may appear during different stages of crafting work
Explores ways to identify what’s holding works in progress back
Offers worksheets you can incorporate into your own practice to bring your vision to the page
To watch the workshops on replay and work at your own pace, attend upcoming live Zoom workshops, and access all resources and worksheets
Next Live Zoom
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Choosing words, phrases, and sentence structures that paint your heart’s vision
TBA | coming soon
Workshops on Replay
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Developing early drafts to firm up the scaffolding with strategic outlining
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Getting the bones of early drafts right through deep questioning
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Giving readers and ourselves gifts by tossing back what’s not needed and loving it
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Choosing words, phrases, and sentence structures that paint your heart’s vision
Based on 20 years editing, patterns holding works back and prompts to usher them forward
What qualifies me to offer BYOE workshops
For two decades, I’ve edited more than a thousand manuscripts, from memoir to fiction to self-help and a whole lot in between. Whether as a developmental, content, or line editor, I’ve seen my job as helping authors transform works they’ve knitted from the fibers of their beings into the best versions possible.
Before that, I was briefly an award-winning journalist.
I’ve also worked as “book doctor” (partial ghost writer) and collaborator on many projects.
I’ve written copy for clients ranging from question answering systems to bloggers and influencers to nonprofits.
I’ve served as managing / assigning editor for a handful of micro publications.
Applying to my own writing what I’ve learned from decades of working with others’ writing has brought joy to my practice and strengthened my work.
Why they’ll work for you
A writer, says Annie Dillard, slides desk and chair “out in the middle of the air … [to] float thirty feet from the ground … Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk midair.” She also says we bait our work with a chunk of who we are. Like the woman who saved her self and a toddler stranded in a remote locale by catching the first of many fish with a chunk of her flesh, thus we write.
Pouring through years of marked-up manuscripts and correspondences to prepare for these workshops, I saw an understanding of these two concept has fueled my two-decade career as an editor. I honor the feats and sacrifices of authors—myself included. “You are such a patient, generous editor,” comments one publisher. “You knew exactly what I meant to say and how to bring it out,” says an author, both versions of notes I’ve received over and over.
We can all bring this honoring, generosity, and patient joy to our own writing practices. Trusting we’ll have our own backs at different stages of crafting our works in progress toward the vision we hold for them will set the writer in us free to write audaciously.
Know you can get the bones right, cut what isn’t essential, and make deliberate choices. And you can craft with joy and confidence, certain your sacrifice and belief in yourself will pay off. These workshops show you how I’ve helped myself and many others do that.
All artwork for the Rolling Desk is by the crazy talented Alexandra Rickards. Check out her art and think of her for your project needs!