Need support writing your first draft?
Check out the First Draft Novel Coaching Program.
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.
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 Spring 2024, with the second slated for publication the following year and a third nearly completed.
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:
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:
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).
“Working with Heidi was pure magic! After working through several drafts of my novel, I was struggling with the structure and, overall, felt I had hit a wall. Heidi provided a brilliant idea on how to restructure my novel (complete with detailed outline!) and identified further opportunities for story development. Her feedback was incredibly thorough, kind, and thoughtful. Working with her was the best investment I could have made in myself and my work.”
— Virginia Moore —
“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 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.”
— Fides Krucker —
(Author of Reclaiming Calliope)
“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.”
— Zahra Haji —
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.
I work primarily with literary and upmarket fiction. If you write genre fiction, I may not be 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.
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.
First, you’ll be taken to my calendar to choose a time for us to meet over Zoom for a 15-minute chat. You’ll also answer a few questions about your novel and your writing. The purpose of this 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. After our call, I may ask you to send me a short sample of your manuscript, and we’ll come to an agreement together on whether we’d like to move forward.
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.
If needed, we can also be flexible with scheduling our session dates, extending our time together so you don’t feel rushed and have enough time for reflection and evolving insight through the process.
Between sessions, you can always 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.
“I was hoping to get a renewed sense of enthusiasm for my novel (and really, to find out whether it was something worth pursuing at all). Working with Heidi made me realize that yes, I WAS writing a novel! I know that sounds really simple, but I did need this kind of encouragement to keep going. And it was more than encouragement—with Heidi, I found someone who was as invested in my novel as I was, who was happy to talk over what I might be embarrassed to talk about with someone else, thinking I was being too fussy (little plot details, random worries, etc.). She helped me talk about my novel like it was a novel! Which it is! Heidi also really helped open up some rigid ideas I had about structure (or, the lack of structure, which I was struggling with). She had great ideas around plot points that felt like stumbling blocks, which felt like it snowballed into coming up with my own insights about new things that could happen, new connections between characters, ways to streamline the plot while making the novel feel more like itself. The whole process felt more flexible, and more joyful, than it had in the past. Even now, I’ll be doing something else and a new connection will emerge, and I think it’s because she helped me see the potential of this novel.”
Cameron Walker
“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.”
— Suzanne Alyssa Andrew —
(Author of Circle of Stones)
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 may not be 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.
