You’ve done the hardest, most beautiful thing.
You have written a novel.
Maybe you’re not sure exactly what you’ve made inside that stack of pages. Maybe you’re excited and daunted by it in equal measure.
But you’ve taken it as far as you can on your own, and now you need a safe place to deliver this vulnerable creation.
A thorough, thoughtful manuscript assessment + one discussion call
This is for you if:
A thorough, thoughtful manuscript assessment + eight-week coaching container to revise your novel
This is for you if:
I I’ve been writing with Heidi Reimer for the past three years, and I’ve learned so much from her approach. Heidi is a brilliant writer and editor who has been honing her craft for decades.
She has a deeply feminist philosophy, and knows how to optimize our natural creative cycles, so our writing feels nourishing and productive.
Heidi understands process. More importantly, she trusts it.
In my moments of doubt and confusion, her calm wisdom helped me keep the faith and finish my book. She helped untangle all of my writing knots — both in my craft and my ego.
I’m so pleased to introduce her to you!
Iapproach a manuscript from the heart centre as well as the brain, bringing a compassionate and intuitive sensibility to the process, always holding you and your vision in highest respect.
I studied editing in the Ryerson University publishing program, but the real certification is decades of engaging deeply with the novels of other writers and working it out the hard way in my own manuscripts.
And because my own novels, writing practice, and artistic dreams have demanded my deepest growth and awakening as a human being, I make sure (especially in the coaching relationship) we’re not addressing just the nuts and bolts of a manuscript but the emotional, psychological, and spiritual reality of being a writer and a creative.
My debut novel will be published by Penguin Random House in March 2023, with the second slated for publication the following year and a third nearly completed.
If you’re happy to implement feedback on your own
You remain the authority on your own work, always. But you’ve taken your novel as far as you can on your own, and you’re looking for a professional, trustworthy outside perspective to help you complete what you’ve begun and prepare it for its next steps into the world (agent submissions, publishing house submissions, indie publishing).
Want a writing coach to help you edit the first draft of your novel? If you have a manuscript that’s ready for feedback, work one-on-one with our novel coach Heidi Reimer. Receive thorough notes on your manuscript and supportive one-to-one coaching calls to help you finish your rewrite in 8 weeks.
Get feedback and revise your manuscript. Set up a discovery call with Heidi.
*
“I chose Heidi Reimer as my first reader on my second novel for her care and candour. I needed a reader to understand the years of dedication I put into it, handle it with sensitivity and give it a close, attentive read. At the same time I appreciate direct feedback. Heidi plunged deep into the story and its characters and emerged with smart structural solutions and helpful writing craft catches that aligned with my vision for my book. She was able to see what I was trying to do and offer fitting, and artistic, suggestions to help me fully realize the story’s potential. Her notes proved valuable and insightful as well as encouraging. I heartily recommend Heidi for her thorough and thoughtful approach to manuscript evaluations and editing.”
You’ll get the most value from your manuscript evaluation if your novel is as close to completion as you can get it. You may know that it’s not where it needs to be yet or have lots of questions about how it’s working, but you’ll want to have developed, revised, and finessed already so that you’re receiving feedback on your best work.
Your word count should be 70,000 to 100,000 words.
If you’d like ongoing support and accountability, Manuscript Evaluation with Revision Coaching might be a better fit for you. In that package, you get everything you receive in the Manuscript Evaluation plus an additional two months of regular coaching calls. Together we get clear on your goals for the book and create a concrete revision plan with time goalposts to help you achieve it. You also receive the Creative Revisioning process, where we work with block-clearing and intention-setting around your relationship to writing, your goals for the novel you’re creating, and the transition into a new stage of visibility.
I work primarily with literary and upmarket fiction. If you write genre fiction, I’m not the best editor for you.
Once you’ve secured your spot in my schedule, you’ll send your manuscript and receive it back within one month. I work with only one manuscript at a time, so your characters will be filling my head and receiving my full attention for that month. This also means that I might not be able to delve into your manuscript immediately, so if you’re currently finishing a draft and you work well with a deadline, think about booking in advance.
You’ll be taken to a form where you can tell me a little about your novel. You’ll also choose your preferred dates for sending me your manuscript and receiving your evaluation. I’ll get back to you to confirm your place in my schedule and give you your booking link.
Want a writing coach to help you edit the first draft of your novel? If you have a manuscript that’s ready for feedback, work one-on-one with our novel coach Heidi Reimer. Receive thorough notes on your manuscript and supportive one-to-one coaching calls to help you finish your rewrite in 8 weeks.
Get feedback and revise your manuscript. Set up a discovery call with Heidi.
*
“Heidi embodies clarity and enthusiasm. She emboldens me by making succinct and manageable suggestions that illuminate my thought processes as well as the way I am tying them to the page. Her e-mail communication is detailed and precise and her face to face conversation fun and terrifically helpful. She is clear and incredibly intelligent. I would work with her again in a flash.”
If you want to revise your novel with ongoing guidance, support,
and the assurance of not being in this alone
Looking head-on at the result of years of deep, personal creative work can feel uncomfortable and confusing. You have so many hopes for your novel, so much belief in its possibilities and promise.
You couldn’t have shown up day after day to devote yourself to the deep work of making it if you didn’t.
But revision can be daunting. You might feel too close to your novel to see it with any perspective. You’re afraid to invest in changes that might not work. Maybe you already have a trail of first drafts behind you, manuscripts that once sparkled with similar not-fully-realized potential.
You don’t want to abdicate authority over your own work, but you do want guidance, accountability, and a strong container to help you complete that work.
Manuscript Evaluation with Revision Coaching is a full-service, bespoke package that takes care of all of you — your novel manuscript, but also you as a writer and a human: your dreams and intentions for this novel and for your writing career, the resistance or fears you may feel around confronting what you’ve made and moving forward to a new stage, the anxieties that can come up around exposing your work to another’s eyes.
While I focus on reading your manuscript, you get started with Creative Revisioning, a half-day self-guided retreat (at home or somewhere special, whatever works best for you).
You’ll dream big about your hopes and intentions for this novel, set your commitment for embarking on the revision phase of the work, get clear on the doubts or fears that might arise (and why), and identify and release old stories, limiting self-talk, and other internal or external barriers that might get in the way as you revise.
We’ll delve into everything that came up for you on your retreat, so we can clear the way for the work of the next 2 months.
You’ll get:
On this video call we go through the feedback together, ask and answer questions, clarify suggestions, brainstorm possibilities, and begin to dream up the revision plan.
Your revision plan is a living document based on the manuscript evaluation, the ideas generated in our evaluation session, and above all on what feels like the resonant, right path to you. You are in charge of this document, of the revision approach you want to take, and of where you want your novel to go.
Together we decide how much can be accomplished within the coaching container and set time goalposts for each step of the revision.
Your revision plan gives you concrete marching orders and doable steps, so you always know what you’re doing each time you sit down to work. Our video calls every other week give you built-in accountability and ongoing support for struggles in the manuscript or in your creative practice.
On the weeks we don’t meet, you’re free to send me an email with questions or quandaries.
If the revisions are too big to complete within our time container, we make sure you have traction and a solid plan for continuing on your own.
If your revision is complete and you’re ready to query agents or submit to publishers, we’ll use this final session to begin preparing you for that — practically and psychologically.
Want a writing coach to help you edit the first draft of your novel? If you have a manuscript that’s ready for feedback, work one-on-one with our novel coach Heidi Reimer. Receive thorough notes on your manuscript and supportive one-to-one coaching calls to help you finish your rewrite in 8 weeks.
Get feedback and revise your manuscript. Set up a discovery call with Heidi.
*
“You are a miracle, Heidi — a true and invaluable gem. Thank you for putting so much thoughtfulness and heart into your suggestions! Your support and encouragement have made all the difference through this journey.”
Because this is a customized experience, we work within the parameters of your own life, but ideally you’ll have two hours a day to give to your novel in addition to our coaching sessions. If you struggle to prioritize your writing, we can work on helping you build a nurturing and sustainable creative practice. And the power of working with — and investing in — a coach is that you’ve instantly created not just accountability but a time-limited container that says NOW is when you’re revising your novel. You’ll have built-in support both to help you do that and to ensure you do it.
You’ll get the most value from this coaching package if you’ve taken your novel as far as you can on your own. You will likely sense that it’s not completely where it needs to be yet, but you’ll want to have developed and finessed it beyond the messy first draft stage. Your word count should be 70,000 to 100,000 words.
I work primarily with literary and upmarket fiction. If you write genre fiction, I’m not the best coach for you.
That depends on your particular manuscript and on the level of revision needed. If you aren’t able to complete your revision before the coaching period ends, we’ll make sure you have plenty of clarity, direction, and actionable steps to continue on your own. And if your novel doesn’t need a lot of substantive work, that gives us the opportunity to focus more granularly on craft or on individual scenes.
First, you’ll be taken to my calendar to choose a 15-minute time slot that works for you. You’ll answer a few questions about your novel and about you as a writer. Then you’ll receive an email with a Zoom link for our call.
The purpose of the discovery call is for me to understand more about you and your novel, for you to understand who I am as a writing coach, and for both of us to discover if we’re a good fit for close, creative work together. The coaching relationship can be intimate; it requires vulnerability, presence, and a compatible sensibility. This call helps us both feel that out.
If it’s a YES for both of us, we agree to move forward with coaching. I'll send you a booking link and you’ll send me your manuscript. You’ll get a welcome email with your Creative Revisioning PDF so you can start planning your solo retreat to get conscious and intentional about what you want to transform and create in the next three months.
Then you’ll book your first coaching call, the Creative Revisioning Session…and we’re off on our creative adventure.
I’m a novelist, essayist, and writing coach based in Prescott, Ontario. My debut novel, The Mother Act, is forthcoming from Penguin Random House in 2023, and my short stories and essays have been featured in Chatelaine, The New Quarterly, Little Fiction, Literary Mama, and the anthologies Body & Soul: Stories for Skeptics and Seekers, The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood, and Outcrops: Northeastern Ontario Short Stories. I have tried to write or longed to write or resisted writing or feared writing or, finally, actually written for 36 years.
