Hey writers, let’s work together on your short or long projects
I’ve helped first time authors reflecting back on their lives, writers converting notes into a book, students in high school, college, and grad school, journalists moving into a more creative space, fiction writers revising stories and novels, essayists, memoirists, and graphic novelists.
I've been a teacher for 30 years, and during the shutdown I started working with all sorts of writers, one-on-one, remotely. I've spent most of my teaching career with less experienced writers, ages 17 to 90, and recently helped a retired psychologist shape and edit an essay that became his first publication in a national magazine. And I've also helped veteran writers with full-length manuscripts, an author whose book ended up on the NYT bestseller list, a clinician who'd written a well known textbook making a new foray into genre fiction, a journalist moving into a more creative space, and so on.
A bit more about my process
The compulsion to write is the compulsion to understand, to make connections, to excavate and uncover feelings and insights. We’re living in a time of worry, excitement, and upheaval. As a society, we approach this moment within a certain framework, but as individuals, each of us struggles to comprehend these thoughts and feelings. Before you share your work with me, we'll review the process, and then I'll edit and discuss your work with you, and follow up by passing along any stories, essays, chapters of novels, sections of dialogue from plays, anything that I think might be able to help you in your work. When I work with editors, they line-edit me, and I learn from them in this very practical way. I think of line editing as a way to show a writer the potential in their work and to light the path forward. I'd also be happy to suggest things for us to read / discuss together. I’ll read your piece slowly and carefully, then read through a second time, write margin comments where I might suggest new material, line edit, then write up summary comments. I often weigh in on structure, and give the writer what amounts to a road map for revision. After the writer has had a chance to look over my feedback, we chat about it. I don't rewrite people's work, but I've always been interested in getting in there and showing a writer what I think is possible, sometimes by rewriting a line or reordering a paragraph.
My fee
I try to work within someone's budget whenever possible. I'll take between 3 and 5 hours to read and comment on a short story. For a manuscript / novel in progress, it depends on the length and the condition of the work. A book-length manuscript (of 100,000 words) will take me 25-50 hours. For longer work I’ll need a moment to quickly review your manuscript and then briefly discuss it with you. After that I’ll be able to give you a price.
Contact me at mattklam@gmail.com