Please allow me to introduce myself.

     My name is Joshua C. Williams, but everyone just calls me ‘Josh.’ Feel free to do the same.

     I am launching this site as a homepage for my new freelance line editing business, as well as a space to post the occasional writing of my own if my muse should ever find inspiration.

     You can find information about the business side on the designated page for it, and you can find a running log of my past work here.

     Admittedly, it’s not much as of yet. Only three listed at the moment, and there’s a fourth that I cannot discuss as it is not yet available. So far as I am aware, I am still under an NDA. (And, yes, I am quite fine with signing such if you wish, provided you are fine with my posting about it after its release. Mutual advertising, y’know.) That said, the authors I have worked with have, happily enough, expressed great satisfaction with my work and the desire to work with me again on their future projects. I am certain you will feel the same.

     Now, I suppose you may be wondering why I would wish to do this work instead of writing my own books. That’s fair, and I shall tell you.

     I do, in fact, plan to write my own books someday. However, my present main line of work (ESL education, going on ten years) uses much too different brain circuitry, and my brain has trouble switching gears between that and creation. My hope is that keeping my brain in the literary space will make it easier to switch back-and-forth between work and creative modes.

     There is also the matter of my own nature. I do not often seek the spotlight. I am much more comfortable playing a supporting role. Ever the team player, I find I work best as a facilitator, serving under a leader and seeking out ways to enable the team to succeed so the leader doesn’t have to worry about them.

     In that regard, I view the author of the manuscript as the leader while I am in an advisory role. I will seek out all the different hiccups throughout the manuscript and fix them, but the author is free to disregard if they wish. I would not advise it, but still. The story is yours to tell, and I am merely lending my services to help you tell it the best way you can.

     So, then, why line editing? Why not copy editing or content editing?

     Another fair inquiry. For a content editor, it would be best to have someone with a proven track record of telling their own full stories. As of yet, I have not proven myself thus. For a copy editor, I would be relegated to merely correcting capitalization and punctuation issues. I would be alert to issues within the story but unable to do much about them. As a line editor, it’s a nice halfway house between the two. I would fix all the things a copy editor would while also ensuring any issues with the prose itself are amended. I would not greatly alter the prose, mind, and I would seek to preserve your narrative style, but I would ensure that it flows smoothly throughout the work.

     That, right there, is a skill I have honed through years of editing and helping people learn to express themselves in English, and it is something that I have found immense satisfaction in doing whilst editing the manuscripts I’ve done. Even if I never manage to finish my own books, that I can help others with theirs is, I think, enough.

     My friend JH Lillevik, for we do consider each other friends despite living a quarter of the world away, has this notion of authors and storytellers being something akin to tour guides or museum curators. To borrow the latter analogy, I would consider a line editor to be the museum custodian. It’s humble work, one which does not get much glory, but I am quite happy with that.

     It’s honest work, work I enjoy, and I take great personal pride in helping others succeed.

     Now, I leave it to you. If you have a manuscript that needs editing, and I sound like the sort of man you’d like to work with, you know where to find me.