The Feral Freelancer

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Charlottesville, VA
The Feral Freelancer

Coaching for people who live outside the box.

03/08/2026

My garlic is a bird! (To be said in the same intonation as “that log had a child!” 🤣)

02/03/2026

Mirrim and I agree that we moved from Wisconsin for a REASON!

10/18/2025

One of my buddies for the weekend 😍

10/02/2024

At long last, I’m putting out a newsletter! Or perhaps more accurate, a blog in newsletter clothing? Link in bio to subscribe if you don’t feel like typing in the URL :)

09/16/2024

Apparently I’m having a brat sandwich…but actually not 🤪😋 (It was delicious!)

09/15/2024

New(ish) setup for today’s sprint! ’s friend Kelly turned me onto this $7 laptop stand!

09/11/2024

😊 One of my missions in life is to help people find ways to make their work more fun and satisfying—to find joy in the process as well as in the product. So this testimonial really made my day!

I am currently accepting editing and coaching clients. We might be a good editing fit if you are an author in the humanities or social sciences who needs help untangling the threads of your narrative, finding your article/book's argument, smoothing convoluted sentence structures, and/or trimming your prose down to a prescribed word count.

And because I'm a weirdo who enjoys such things, I can also help you with formatting your bibliography/references section (Chicago or APA styles) or constructing tidy, APA-compliant tables.

08/28/2024

🤔 I've been thinking a lot lately about how long it took me to learn the difference between topic sentences and thesis statements. Somehow I didn't learn that lesson in school even though I (thought I) devoured every bit of writing instruction that came my way.

I eventually got the memo, but not until I was well into grad school.

Loose-jointed arguments that lead to scope-creepy papers are SO common, and I think one culprit is the confusion between "topic" and "argument" (aka "thesis statement").

What was your experience? Did you spend a lot of time thinking that "topic sentence" and "thesis statement" were the same thing?

08/08/2024

☀ When someone asks us to identify our ideal audience, we tend to give fairly happy answers: we imagine that our readers will be interested, open to new information and approaches, and generous.

☠️ When we're actually writing, however, many of us imagine the opposite: the readers who loom in our imaginations are often uncharitable and even terrifying—as though we are writing for an audience of demons and dementors (and not the fun kind!).

How can you transform your internalized audience from ferocious to friendly?

Sometimes even just acknowledging the fear can help. So can finding ways to remind yourself of your ideal readers. And although I've never done this, I suppose it might help some folks to put up a picture of their dreaded reader and draw horns on it? You do you!

If fear is holding you back from writing, coaching can help!

07/31/2024

We all have to learn how to structure academic prose, whether we're writing abstracts, articles, dissertations, or books.

Even if we were lucky enough to have received instruction in writing these different subgenres, we often struggle to see the big picture because the details—like the gorgeous ivy below—are just soooooooo delicious.

😝 Ok, maybe ivy isn't delicious to humans. But details sure can be! Unfortunately, ivy-style prose is decidedly unappealing to reviewers. 🤢

That's when developmental editing is useful. It can save a lot of time and grief to hire someone to help you find and refine your argument and help ensure that your details support that argument.

🌱 Are you an academic in the arts/humanities interested in developmental editing or coaching? Please reach out at www.theferalfreelancer.net.

07/24/2024

Fear has been on my mind a lot lately.

I have been thinking about the fear that sometimes sets in at the beginning of a new project when we worry about what readers will think before there are any words on the page to think ABOUT. And of course, I’ve been thinking about my own existential fears as a q***r person living in the United States in 2024.

I’ve been writing some new text for my website (updates coming soon!), and I keep getting hung up on the phrase “paralyzed with fear.” Years of operating in an ableist society have trained my brain to turn to these words when I think about the immobilization that sometimes accompanies fear.

Or “tharn,” as the rabbits in Watership Down describe the state of terror that renders one unable to move.

So this is my call for us to incorporate “tharn” into everyday language. It’s a graceful and evocative way to describe this state of being without resorting to ableist (and wordy!) phrases.

And may we all have fewer occasions to need such language!

05/14/2024

One of my adult fiddle students used the term "May-cember" the other day at her lesson. I had never heard the term before, but it's...PERFECT.

(And yes, I forgave her for not practicing as much that week!)

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