My Approach
I understand the foundation and nonprofit world and the pressures that professionals face in writing, particularly to their boards and peers.
I’ve worked as a writer and editor for more than 30 years. I’m often called in to “rescue” a document that is a priority for my clients.
I’d much rather work with authors from the beginning to help them find confidence and success in their writing.
I’ve worked with everyone from professionals who struggle to write emails to their bosses, to staff writing high stakes reports to board members, to researchers producing long documents for demanding clients.
We meet regularly to talk about your writing and, unlike some other coaches, I don’t charge an additional fee for providing an in-depth review of your writing before and after our calls.
My 4-Step Process
to Writing Confidently
Starting with your singular voice
• Talking it out
• Dealing with your writing baggage
• Getting out of your way.
Translating your expertise and insights into clear English
• Thinking time
• Unpacking what you want to say
• Figuring out the why and who.
Getting your ideas out and organized
• What’s the big idea?
• Writing longer, rather than shorter
• Using the Ladder of Abstraction
• Revising your work.
Navigating feedback from your boss and peers
• What’s behind the feedback?
• What if the feedback makes the writing worse?
• Who’s the boss?
Pick the plan that works for you.
I offer a variety of packages for coaching and can also customize them for you.
You will get a personalized approach that meets your needs and circumstances,
not a cookie cutter, by the numbers one.
Sprinting to
Make a Deadline
Short, urgent projects
that need to be done in
about a month.
Building
Your Muscle
Ongoing writing needs using more complex projects to try out new approaches
Learning for
the Long Haul
Working with multiple staff, grantees, or consultants who regularly produce writing.
If you decide you want to offload the writing to someone else for now, check out my writing services at www.clearthinkingcommunications.com
My writing process feels much more natural to me now that I have worked with you. I was getting in my own way by not tuning into my own voice – it is very difficult to write when I am second guessing what I write. The process has also made me very aware of how I edit and respond to other’s writing. If my name is on a written piece, then I feel that I have a responsibility to write in my own voice – if my name isn’t on it, then I don’t re-write. I think I have a deeper sense of respect for writing.”