Kim Pearson is an award-winning author, a ghostwriter, and an editor. Her services have helped many become authors of polished, professional, and compelling books and articles. She has ghostwritten or edited over 40 books, which tell the stories of a wide variety of people and cover a broad range of topics, from saxophones to finance, city histories to hypnotherapy, psychic horses to constipation, and many points in-between. Her own books include: Making History: how to remember, record, interpret and share the events of your life; You Can Be an Author, Even If You're Not a Writer; Dog Park Diary: the social round of Goody Beagle; and Eating Mythos Soup. Kim teaches workshops and teleclasses on writing, history, and storytelling, and writes two blogs about writing. As an editor, Kim will give you detailed suggestions to correct, smooth, polish, enhance, or fix your writing so that it sizzles or soothes, and captivates your readers. Kim is a reader-centered editor, helping you to define and understand your readers' care-abouts, so that you can connect with them by using words and metaphors that speak to their hearts. Kim believes that sharing our stories and ideas connects, inspires, teaches, and heals us all. The written word is one of the most powerful forces there are, and to write one's truth is a profound gift to the world. Kim is honored to contribute to this process.    More About Kim What I like most about editing: I like finding the creative, exciting, and beautiful ideas or stories that are trapped in word thickets. I like setting them free so they can be appreciated by others. My best advice to writers: When I teach writing, I share my 5-step writing process, which works with any subject and any kind of project, from blog posts to books: Write everything you know, or think you know; everything you feel, or think you feel; everything you've done, or wish you'd done (or wish you hadn't done)—in short, write everything. Basically this means: do not censor as you write. Editing comes later. Read what you wrote, and look for the recurring themes or threads. I promise they are there. Look until you find them. Identify one major and one complimentary minor theme. Remove everything and anything that does not fit or enhance either the major or minor theme. This is difficult. You may feel that your heart has been ripped from your body by a sadistic monkey and eaten by a pack of cold-eyed wolves. Be ruthless and do it anyway. (This is where a conceptual editor can help—let her be the sadistic monkey.) Organize and expand on whatever is left. My favorite genres to edit: I love memoirs and personal or family histories. History has always been my passion, and I love exploring how each individual life contributes to our shared history. (However, I've found that even "dry" books such as financial, business, or technical books can be enlivened and uplifted by the incorporation of personal storytelling, so I like those too.) Number of years I've been editing: I've been editing professionally for others since 1998—eleven years now. Edit hard copy or on-screen: I do both. I like to read the book or article in its entirety in hard copy, making a few scribbles as I go; but I do my editing work on-screen. My "must have" writing reference books: I use both Strunk & White's The Elements of Style, and the Chicago Manual of Style as editing reference works, but I also use many online resources. I also love Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss. Favorite background music when I edit: I made a playlist I titled "Writing Music," an eclectic collection of various artists and genres with only one thing in common—no lyrics. I can't write or edit with words in the background. I guess my favorite would be Alice Gomez' "Journeys of the Flute." Scene outside the window where I edit: Thirteen fir trees, one elegant cedar, two giant rhododendron bushes, a 12-foot holly bush, two spindly maples that haven't yet decided to thrive, and a baby dogwood tree. Favorite quotes: I have many favorite quotes. Here is one that could be applied to editing and writing, by Fred Astaire: "The higher up you go, the more mistakes you're allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style." Memorable fictional character: This is an impossible question! As soon as I think of one, four more pop up in my head. Anne Shirley, Scarlett O'Hara, Robert Jordan, Eeyore, Mma Ramotswe—I can't stop! Most recent blog/website I bookmarked: Helen Ginger's blog. Currently reading: The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson; Among the Mad (a Maisie Dobbs mystery), by Jacqueline Winspear; and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver