Mentoring and Feedback
If you are interested in writing workshops and retreats, please click here. If you’re interested in one-to-one feedback and mentoring, either as one-off sessions or ongoing, then please stay on this page.
Do you have a writing project with which you’d like some support and guidance?
Are you having problems knowing where to start?
Or how to turn your ideas and research into a compelling narrative?
Have you done a substantial amount of work, but reached a point at which you’re feeling stuck?
Do you have a near-finished text and want to ensure it’s as polished as possible before sending it to agents?
Are you an experienced writer, and would appreciate a fresh set of eyes on your writing?
Why might you need a mentor?
Writing is hard: there’s no shying away from it! In every project, there will be times when you feel that you’ve gone down a dead end, or are uncertain about where to head next. I can guarantee that, at some point, you’ll feel despairing about the writing that is emerging, or you’ll know that there’s something wrong with your draft but you can’t quite put your finger on it and have no idea how to fix it. Every single writer has felt like this, and it’s often enough to make us want to throw the towel in.
Published authors are impelled to keep going by the existence of a contract with a publisher, but it can be trickier for un-contracted writers to sustain commitment over the long term. Having a mentor on-side to discuss difficulties, to suggest ways forward and to provide motivation and accountability can be the difference between giving up (with all the horrible emotions that entails) and ploughing onwards to produce a finished work of which you’ll be rightly proud. Mentoring can hasten along the painful aspects of writing, and clear the way for more of the buzzy, ecstatic moments. I’d love to be there alongside you!
I can’t promise that mentoring will lead to publication – because publication is never guaranteed for any writer. But, from my own experience as a writer, tutor, mentor and mentee, I know that the structure, accountability, support and feedback from a mentoring programme can be invaluable in helping to sustain the drive necessary to see a writing project through to completion.
How I can help
I am a highly experienced tutor and mentor, and for many years, I’ve taught creative writing, online and in person, for literary centres, creative-writing foundations and universities (at undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD level). I specialise in teaching non-fiction (including, but not limited to, memoir, biography, travel-writing, nature-writing) but I have also mentored fiction writers too. I’ve helped numerous writers, from complete beginners to published authors, develop and refine their projects with great success. I’m also a critic, reviewer and literary prize judge, and I’m therefore experienced in swiftly digesting and responding to texts, and I have a solid grasp of current trends in the literary marketplace.
I’m delighted to be able to offer one-to-one mentoring (via Zoom). My services include a three-year programme that will help you to take a concept all the way through to completion of a book-length manuscript; a twelve-month programme, designed to help you over any significant hurdles you may be facing; to one-off discussions and feedback.
Feedback from past mentees
From Concept to Completion:
Length: 3 years
Cost: £6480 (can be paid in quarterly instalments of £540; and it’s possible to undertake this programme part-time).
If you don’t want to do a creative writing PhD, but you’d like a similar-length programme, which is designed to support you all the way from developing an initial idea for a book to completing the manuscript, then this is the programme for you.
The programme comprises:
- An introductory online meeting via Zoom of 30 minutes, in which you describe your initial ideas for a book; your influences; your voice and style; your writing and research methods; and what you envisage producing in terms of length, genre, and creative aims. We’ll discuss how a 3-year programme might help you, and how it might fit in with the logistical realities of your life. I usually recommend aiming to produce c. 4000-5000 words per month/40,000-50,000 words per year, but this inevitably varies from author to author, depending on their working practice and their calendar. You can ask any questions you’d like, and I’ll be able to give limited feedback and suggestions based on what you’ve told me. This is a chance for both of us to ascertain whether we’ll work well together. This meeting is £100 (payable in advance), which is refundable if you decide to sign up for the 3-year or 12-month packages.
- Meeting #1: 1 hour Zoom meeting. Prior to this meeting, you’ll produce a written a synopsis of your planned project and an outline of its structure (with summaries of each chapter, if appropriate), and a sample of your writing. Don’t worry – you won’t be held to this synopsis and structure! It will inevitably change over the following months, so this is just a starting point. In the meeting, we’ll discuss how the next 6-12 months will be structured in terms of what you’ll plan to research and write; what you’ll deliver to me; and what you’ll have created by the end of the year. We’ll set short- and long-term goals, and I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing. After the meeting, I’ll write up a twelve month schedule (don’t worry – this is flexible and can be adapted as we progress!); and 500 words of written feedback on your writing.
- After this, we will meet online once a month, for an hour each time. Prior to each meeting, you’ll send me up to 5000 words of writing (plus, if appropriate, a few lines describing whether the writing fits into your overall project; how the project in general is going; and whether there are any specific aspects about which you’d appreciate feedback). In the meeting, I’ll offer detailed feedback and suggestions on your writing and project, and we’ll make a plan for the following month. After each meeting, I’ll provide you with 500 words of written feedback, plus a summary of what we’ve agreed that you will work on over the next month. Again, this is all flexible: projects always adapt and change as they progress.
- Every 8-10 months, I’ll ask you to submit a longer sample of writing from your book, and we’ll dedicate a meeting to discussing the overarching structure or architecture of the book as a whole.
- Meetings in the final 6-8 months will be dedicated to the art of editing, revising and rewriting.
- Final Meeting: The intention is that, by this final meeting, you will have produced a whole manscrupt. We will discuss next steps. Would you like to submit to an agent? Or to literary publications? Or for a prize? I will provide guidance and suggestions and, again, you will receive written feedback, and a written summary of these conversations, after the meeting.
Clearing the Hurdle:
Length: 12 months
Cost: £2400 (can be paid in quarterly instalments of £600)
This programme comprises:
- An introductory online meeting via Zoom of 30 minutes, in which you describe a synopsis of your project, and we’ll discuss what you want to get out of mentoring, and what input from me would be most helpful over the next twelve months. You can ask any questions you’d like, and I’ll be able to give limited feedback and suggestions based on what you’ve told me. This is a chance for both of us to ascertain whether we’ll work well together. This meeting is £100 (payable in advance), which is refundable if you decide to sign up for the 12-month or 3-year packages.
- Meeting #1: up to 1 hour. Prior to this meeting, you’ll send me up to 5000 words of your writing, plus a synopsis of your project and an outline of its structure (with summaries of each chapter, if appropriate). In the meeting, we’ll discuss how the next 12 months will be structured in terms of what you’ll plan to research and write; what you’ll deliver to me; and what you’ll have created by the end of the year. I’ll also provide detailed feedback on your writing. After the meeting, I’ll write up a twelve month schedule (don’t worry – this is flexible and can be adapted as we progress!); and 500 words of written feedback on your writing.
- Meetings #2-11: we’ll meet online once a month, for an hour each time. Prior to each meeting, you’ll send me up to 5000 words of writing (plus, if appropriate, a few lines describing whether the writing fits into your overall project; how the project in general is going; and whether there are any specific aspects about which you’d appreciate feedback). In the meeting, I’ll offer detailed feedback and suggestions on your writing and project, and we’ll make a plan for the following month. After each meeting, I’ll provide you with 500 words of written feedback, plus a summary of what we’ve agreed that you will work on over the next month. Again, this is all flexible: projects always adapt and change as they progress.
- Meeting #12: In this final 1-hour online meeting, as well as offering feedback on another 5000-word chunk of writing, we will also discuss next steps. Is your project nearing completion? If so, what might you want to work on in order to ready the manuscript for public view? Would you like to submit to an agent? Or to literary publications? Or for a prize? Again, you will receive written feedback, and a written summary of these conversations, after the meeting.
Manuscript feedback:
I can offer detailed feedback (both through a 1-hour Zoom conversation and as written feedback) on any length of your writing, from a short extract or essay-length text to a full book-length manuscript. The nature of my feedback will be closer to a creative edit than a copy-edit. A copy-edit comprehensively corrects a manuscript, word-by-word, line-by-line, according to rules of punctuation, grammar and house style, and with an eye to improving the elegance of the writer’s phraseology. I do not offer this, although, if there are repeated grammatical anomalies or repetitions of a particular word, I will point them out. Instead, my feedback will be more creative than a copy-edit. I will comment upon your writing style (voice, tone, etc); on the text’s structure and architecture; on your research and how it has been utilised; and how you might develop, refine or revise particular elements. Where appropriate, I will lightly mark up the text with specific suggestions, as well as producing a written assessment of your work.
All feedback begins with an initial meeting (via Zoom) of 30 mins. In this meeting, you’ll describe a synopsis of your project and what you’re hoping to achieve with it, and we’ll discuss which aspects you’re particularly keen to receive feedback upon. We’ll both ask questions of one another, and make sure we’re clear on how my feedback might be most helpful to you; and we’ll agree a timeframe. This will be an opportunity for you to decide whether you’d like to go ahead with submitting the manuscript to me for feedback. This meeting will cost £100, and will be refundable if you go ahead with a Manuscript Feedback package.
After the meeting, if you decide to submit your work for my feedback, these are my costs:
- Short extract or essay-length writing (up to 10,000 words): £400
- Longer extract (10,000-30,000 words): £600
- Part-book extract OR whole short book manuscript (30,000-60,000 words): £800
- Book-length manuscript (60,000-100,000 words): £1000
- Long book-length manuscript (over 100,000 words): p.o.a.