An Editor, I Am

I am pleased to announce the official release of my latest project!  Over the past nine months I have worked as Editor on the book Blossoming out of the Valley – Finding Peace and Stillness with God by Abby Lewis.  Just look at this beautiful book!

This project is very close to my heart . . . in reality, the fact that I am writing this post on my own website for my own business is largely because of this book.  My work on this project was what confirmed for me that writing and editing was, in fact, the way I wanted to invest my time and talents.  Let me explain.

In 2010, I was in a period of transition in my life.  I began to sense that my life needed some change, that perhaps it was time to pull back and re-evaluate all the ways I was spending my time and energy.  Making the decision to take this step was a little scary, but also very freeing.  And after several weeks of much prayer and soul-searching, I made the decision to pull back from several of my commitments.

For a series of months, I was in a “wait and see what’s next” mode.  Several opportunities came my way, but I never felt a pull to get involved.  When the summer began, I started thinking about the possibility of putting my experience to “work” and starting my own freelance writing and editing business.  Actually, “thinking about it” is a stretch.  It was more like periodically acknowledging this thought that bounced in and out of my head.  I mean, I never wrote about it (if you read my last post, you know that was atypical), prayed about it or even talked about it with anyone else.  Like many ideas that we never choose to act on, nothing came of it until . . .

I got a call from my friend, Abby Lewis, in July.  Abby and I had been the kind of acquaintances that are common in our small town – we had lots of mutual friends, but had only recently gotten to know each other a little better through our collective work on a community project.  Earlier in the year, Abby had written a manuscript, but was at a point on her book journey that she needed additional assistance before it was ready to be published.  During a conversation in which Abby expressed her need, a mutual friend of ours mentioned my name as someone who could possibly help.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Though hesitant at first, I soon jumped at the opportunity to try out this project.  I thought it might be a good “guinea pig” project – to see if I really wanted to spend my time on projects like these, to figure out how much time per week I really wanted to devote to this kind of work, etc, etc.  Well, it certainly did turn out to be a good “guinea pig” project, and it definitely re-confirmed that writing and editing are for me.

In January, I decided to make it official, and polish writing & editing was born!  So, I suppose I can blame (or thank!) Abby for all of this.  Thank you, Abby!