Sarah Sarai's Editorial Services (to be continued)

First draft, 2/11/23. I'm a stone cold, birthright English major who can edit the sense out of the angels and proofread the evil out of Satan's cold soul. 

Hildegard of Bingen

12th-century editor (and writer) 

In Brief

I am an editor of most anything with words. Fiction. Nonfiction. Poetry. Your manuscript. 

My rates are in accord with the Editorial Freelancer Association's rate sheet. I charge by the number of pages plus the challenge your writing may present (i.e., scholarly; medical; fiction or memoir; poetry...). 

 

How It Works

We talk and/or email. I look at your manuscript (or a portion) and make an estimate in accord with the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) rate sheet, so there is no mystery. If you approve, I draw up a contract which includes a projection of due dates for both of us. I've never had any problem getting paid, but the contract lays out what to can expect, including a timeline. I require a downpayment before I begin, and full payment on completion.

My Story 

(Feel Free to Skip This. I'm Interest in Process and How the Backstory of Journeys so 

I Am Revealing a Bit of Mine)

I was about twenty-five years old when I first realized I could edit. I hadn't thought about it, rarely used the word "edit." But my oldest sister mailed me a few of her poems. I read them, and realized they could use a change here or there. And I would never make a suggestion to my sister about anything. I both worshipped her and found her a bit scary. It's a shame I didn't speak up. I buried my editing self to read read read, smoke marijuana, go back to school for a secondary diploma, teach high school English for three years. That was all in Los Angeles. I moved to Seattle, where I was invited to participate in a small workshop for writers. I was writing short fiction. A woman in the workshop very much appreciated my editing finesse and mentioned me to her supervisor who hired me, when the woman (let's say Queen of Queens) left. For four year I was the Writing Lab person at Antioch College in Seattle. That's close to editing. 

Even closer to editing is editing. I became the editor-in-chief of Northwest Ethnic News. I don't know how. I'd taken one class in journalism in college and felt kinda sorta shamed by the grumpy geezer journalists in charge. I fled to English Lit. Thomas Hardy. Like that. But there I was and there I stayed for four years, working on a monthly newspaper. The original job of NWEN editors was to publish articles about the many types of Scandinavians in the Pacific Northwest and their dances, artwork, and such. Its ... (I'm not finished here.)

(I hope this isn't too much. I'm incredibly shy yet incredibly pushy. Go figure.)

Sarah Sarai