Editorial Notes = clarifying information, additional insight, annotations

Hiya Reader,

Wherever you are in the world, spring has sprung or is springing or will spring. The always awesome team at Merriam-Webster shares this list of spring-related words for your enjoyment (and Scrabble wins!) I personally love "repullulate" which, while it means "to spring or bud anew," to my ears sounds like a Shakespearean insult.

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Example of the Week

Sometimes this is a good example—or a great one. Sometimes this is a bad example—or just a funny blooper. Sometimes a combination. You never know.

How cool is this?

Actionable Tip of the Week

A trick to add to your self-editing toolbox right now!

I wanted to share this portion of an actual rejection I received recently:

Thank you for trusting me with your manuscript, and for your patience as I read. I can see immediately that this book comes from deep love and lived experience. The opening scenes are intimate and sharply rendered. Your use of etymology and linguistic framing gives the memoir an intellectual architecture that reflects your devotion to language. The braided sections are especially moving; they create a layered perspective that feels rare and generous. This is clearly a book written by someone who understands craft. The structure is intentional. The voice is steady. The relationship is examined with intelligence rather than sentimentality, which I respect. That said, after careful consideration, I’m going to pass on this project.

If you're like my best friend, you just laughed out loud. Like...what?

Feedback is a data point, not a verdict. In this case, I got nothing useful to apply because there wasn't anything wrong with my work. It just wasn't for them.

I highly recommend that you keep a feedback log for the work you send out.

When the same note shows up from multiple independent readers, that's a signal. When it shows up once, that's noise — possibly useful noise, but noise. A simple running document where you track who said what, and whether others echoed it, will save you from over-correcting on a single opinion and help you spot the patterns that actually deserve your attention.

For each piece of feedback, note the source, the specific concern, and — crucially — your gut reaction when you first read it. That reaction is data too. Then, once you've let some time pass, return and note whether your gut still holds. Did the sting fade and leave something worth considering behind? Or does the feedback feel just as off-base as it did on day one?

Before you touch a word, run this quick triage: Is the feedback pointing to a craft issue (clarity, pacing, structure) or a preference (tone, subject matter, style)? Craft issues are worth a hard look. Preferences are worth a nod and a pass. The two get conflated constantly, and conflating them will send you down revision rabbit holes that lead nowhere useful.

Over time, your log becomes a record of your own editorial instincts sharpening, not to mention some hard evidence that you can trust them.

We do need to be open to the possibility that feedback reveals something you missed in our self-editing. But less discussed is the possibility that the feedback doesn't reveal any such thing. After all, the goal isn't to write something no one can find fault with. It's to write the truest, strongest version of what you're making.

Reader Question of the Week

Dorothy wrote: How can I make my memoir sustain me during the querying process! How do I keep hope alive during the anxiety-riddled road to getting a book deal?

Dorothy! The querying process is, to put it gently, a masterclass in sitting with uncertainty. You've written your truth, shaped it into something coherent and even beautiful, and now it lives in a stranger's inbox somewhere between a newsletter and a pitch for a celebrity dog memoir.

Here's the thing: your memoir already exists. You wrote it! You really wrote a whole book! No rejection changes that.

While you wait, go back and read a passage you love — not to fix it, but to remember why you wrote it. That memory, that hard-won sentence, belongs entirely to you. The agent's response doesn't.

A few practical anchors: Keep a running list of the reasons this story must exist in the world. Read memoirs you admire. Write something new — even something tiny — so your identity stays "writer" and not "person who is waiting."

And when the anxiety spikes? Remember that every memoir you've ever loved also spent time in an inbox. Someone doubted it. Someone passed on it. Then it found its way.

Want to Submit a Reader Question to Helene?

Give in to the urge.

Link of the Week

Tired of AI in your Internet searches? Here's a comprehensive guide by a librarian with more than 40 advanced Google search techniques alongside eight alternative search engines.​

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Thanks for reading!

~Helene, your writing sherpa