Catherine Ellis

I have a confession: I’m a professional editor who freezes when I sit down to write creatively.   I’m lucky to make a living doing what I love—taking content and making it better, paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the rhythm of editing. There’s no greater satisfaction, in my professional or personal life, than making sentences sing.   But when it comes to writing something purely creative, just for me? I freeze.   My editor brain refuses to sit down and shut up and let me be messy. It wants every sentence to be perfect as I write it. It insists that the first draft should read like a final pass. “Why wouldn’t it?” it argues. “You’re an editor. You know what good writing looks like.”   But that’s not how creativity works. And that's certainly not what I would tell any other creative writer.   Writing needs room to be raw and unsure. To sound a little off at first. But it’s hard to give myself that space when my professional instincts are trained on precision and polish.   So, editors who write: How do you do it? How do you quiet the critic and let the creator take the lead? What are your writing rituals, your craft book recommendations? What is your ugly-first-draft encouragement? Give me your tips! #amwriting #amediting #writingtips #creativewriting #editing #copyediting

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I see that some freelance copywriters/content writers on LinkedIn can be a little defensive about AI. Not me. I've even got a January AI offer for tech-focused companies that want to produce great thought leadership writing. So if your company has spent days fiddling with prompts for an artificial intelligence chatbot, only to be underwhelmed by the White Paper/blogs/report it spat out, don't worry. I can be the humble "human in the loop" that can salvage the generic/bland/annoyingly upbeat/re-tread/factually questionable text and turn it into something decent. And I'll even charge you a special rate - three times more than my usual rate.

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I'm still chasing a June invoice past its July 15 deadline. For any freelancers reading this: if your client is late paying you, you are not overreacting by following up—persistently and professionally. If a contract says Net 15, that’s not a suggestion. I’m not naming names, and likely won't, but silence after delivering quality work feels like a slap. Make sure you know your worth. If you're a company that relies on freelancers' work, pay them on time and in the amount agreed upon.

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I know how much Marketing LinkedIn loves Campaign UK publishing opinions about the work, so we have decided to share them more regularly. An unintended consequence of Campaign only writing Pick/Turkeys when the work justifies either has been fewer of both. And so, we are going to start doing reviews. These will analyse the strengths and weaknesses of an ad (or ads) when there is no Pick or Turkey. I explained this in my column this week (link in the comments).

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Every job I've ever had some bonehead has asked me to put together a 'content calendar' - usually someone who doesn't work in editorial (but not always, and the ones that work in editorial are worse because they should know better). And then I've spent precious time doing it that I could have spent on finding and investigating stories, working with other reporters, reading, having a bath... only to deliver it and for it *never to be read or referred to again*. What is this madness, honestly. If you *really* want to make sure we are covered for content for 'international day of the houseplant' then buy a calendar and use it to burn your house down (preferably with you in it).

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This is what happens when you design copy by committee, with a dozen different stakeholders saying ‘can we just add this?’ and ‘they won’t get it if we don’t include this bit’.  This is just the brief regurgitated onto an ad.  6 different messages.  2x pain points turned into fake messages, with those points painfully shoehorned in.  1x body copy.  1x utterly ambiguous strapline that could apply to any number of brands.  1x CTA.  1 x explainer line: ‘here’s what we do’…because the rest of the ad didn’t make that clear.  Keep stakeholders to a minimum, otherwise your ads end up being a mess. 

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The best editor I ever worked with made me question everything I thought I knew about writing. It was early in my writing career, back when I was in the health and fitness niche. The editor wasn’t being cruel at all. She just could identify exactly why a sentence felt wrong even when I couldn't. Her feedback was surgical. It was specific, necessary, and occasionally brutal. Bad editors make you doubt your ability to write. Good editors make you doubt specific choices. Great editors make you understand why those choices matter. Five years later, I still hear her voice when I'm editing my own work. 'Why this word? Why here? What are you trying to say?' Now when I see extensive edits, I get excited because I can’t wait to hear all about what they caught that I didn’t catch the first time. #FreelanceWriting #Editing #Copywriting #WritingLife #WritingCommunity

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I'm currently sitting on a PILE of press releases I'd love to turn into published stories but can't because they've been sent with images so huge Wordpress can't handle them. Please remember to send web res images to online publications. And while I'm asking for PR favours, please, if you must create a really good looking PDF press release (although not strictly necessary because a good story speaks for itself), please also include a plain text/Word version. When people ask me how to get featured in the media my top tip is always a basic one: make it easy for the journalist to say yes. Hand them what they need on a plate. Please and thank you!

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Freelancers: Don't ever be afraid to pivot, take up a side hustle, or change your mind on anything in regards to your career. I've been a freelance journalist for over 6 years now, and writing about sex and relationships and virtually any lifestyle topic really is my passion. You know what else has been or is currently my passion? Teaching voice lessons (my bachelors is in voice and I went to grad school for Vocal Pedagogy). Training my dogs. Social media content creation. Website design. SEO strategy. Gluten free baking. Mental health awareness. Social justice activism. Advocating for public education (I'm also a former Kindergarten teacher). I just turned 32 and I already feel like I've lived so many lives and tried so many life paths, especially in my career. Will I start teaching voice lessons again one day? Maybe. Will I open a dog training business? Who knows? Ultimately, especially with the state of the journalism industry and job market at-large, not every freelancer has the luxury of staying in one "lane" forever — and that's more than OK. Do what you need to do to create a sustainable business and lifestyle, and NEVER let anyone shame you for making it work. We are all multi-faceted and dynamic creatives! Let's embrace it! #freelancer #freelancing #freelancewriter #journalist #journalism #selfemployment #sidehustles #sidegigs

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Here’s a tip for everyone who wants to be a writer: READ. Read as much as you can, as many writers as you can, about as many topics as you can. I’m constantly surprised that I have to say this. But there is simply no way to be a good writer without being a voracious reader.

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Last week I was asked to speak on copywriting and content writing at a conference. The conference’s web copy had clearly been written using AI. Not just a little, and not edited after. Just straight, over-the-top AI. It sounded as if it was written by a used car dealer. This seemed extra strange as, again, I was being asked to be a speaker on the subject of copywriting for businesses. Just to be sure, I ran it through an AI checker (with full awareness that these are often incorrect) to see if it had the same opinion as me. 90% AI. I asked the conference owner about this along with what the compensation would be for speaking (I’m an experienced international speaker). I never heard back. Pay your speakers. Pay your writers. And don’t ask a copywriter to speak at a conference you’ve used AI to create the copy for.

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There's nothing worse than when you produce a great piece of content for a small website, only to see the 'editor' completely ruin it... Don't get me wrong, usually I respect and editors' work and the changes they choose to make. But when you cut out half the important information I've provided, add in slang that shouldn't even be there, and make me sound cringey and uninformed... That's a problem.

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A top tip for new freelance journalists? Find the editors you love working with - the ones who respond (not necessarily straight away, but eventually), give helpful feedback, communicate graciously, make your piece better than what you filed, sort payment - and hold onto them.

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In proofreading and editing, consistency is key, right? Right. But context needs to come first. In a recent proofread, I found 'low energy' (two open words) and 'low-energy' (hyphenated). I left them inconsistent as they were – and here's why: 💡 low-energy lightbulbs (hyphenated) Here, 'low' is modifying 'energy'. Together, they form an adjective describing the level of energy needed to power the lightbulbs. They need to be hooked together to avoid any ambiguity. ✉️ low energy bills (not hyphenated) Here, 'energy bills' goes together to form a noun – a 'thing'. 'Low' is being used as an adjective on its own this time, describing the charges that are included in these energy bills. A 'low-energy bill' (hyphenated) conjures up images of a piece of paper looking tired! ⭐ Little things like this make a difference to how a reader understands and uses your information. #proofreading #editing

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Commerce writers, if your bylines have vanished thanks to the latest Google algorithm updates or site crufting, don’t panic. You can recover them. I recently thought I'd lost all my old Southern Living commerce stories from 2020–2021. The site had been updated, and the URLs were dead. But there is hope, and I’m sharing this because it saved me. 💾 Pro tip: Always PDF your work the moment it goes live. Especially in commerce, where content is constantly refreshed for SEO, stories are frequently overwritten or removed altogether. If your links are gone: 1. Grab the original URL—either to the story itself or your author page (MuckRack profiles can be helpful here too). 2. Plug it into the Wayback Machine to see if it was archived. https://web.archive.org/ 3. Once found, save a clean PDF using a tool like PrintFriendly. https://lnkd.in/e9kkg5hs Don’t wait for your clips to disappear. Archive them now.

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Great editors systematically edit themselves out of the process. Editing is often seen as a way to improve a piece of writing. But I’ve started to think about it differently. It isn’t just about ‘fixing’ the writing, it’s also about developing the writer. To make this shift, editors need to move away from being prescriptive, and start embracing curiosity and openness. Instead of saying, “This isn’t the best word choice,” it helps to ask: “What were you trying to say here?” “Do you think this thought is articulated as powerfully as you intended?” “Here’s what it implies to me, as a reader.” “Have you considered trying a few different sentence structures—or even moving this to somewhere else in the piece?” The end result? Likely the same set of edits. But along the way, you’re also: Sparking thought Sharing your rationale Understanding the writer’s intention And helping them build their skills for the long run Developmental, structural and line editing are all great, but a small shift in how we approach them could strengthen both the writing and the writer. Editing + mentorship is an incredible way to sustainably build a writer’s, writing team’s, and business’s capability in the long run. Editors, develop the draft AND perfect the craft.

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I've been a freelancer for nearly 15 years (wow 😮). A question I inevitably hear in busier times is: why not subcontract so you can make even more money? I've never once been tempted to consider it. Subcontracting or expanding my business to be an agency (instead of a business of one) would require managing people—that's an entirely different skill set than writing. And it would bring on an all new set of headaches and stressors. When business slows, I'd be in the position of letting other writers go. There would be more potential personality conflicts to manage, and the difficult work of tactfully communicating negative feedback or letting someone know when their work isn't up to snuff. For me, it's always made more sense to focus on what I'm good at: providing great writing services. Not all businesses benefit from chasing growth. In fact, I think a lot of businesses might be run better if owners focused on quality and stability *instead* of growth. That'll stay my focus for as long as I have a business.

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As a former history teacher turned UX writer, I’ve seen how language can both connect and alienate. That’s why I’m always paying attention to the terms we use in our content and conversations. This week’s Top Tip Tuesday is all about avoiding ableist language. These are phrases that come from medical or disability-related contexts and often carry harmful connotations, even when used casually. #UXWriting #ContentDesign #UserExperience #UXTips #Inclusion #Accessibility #TID #ForTheLoveOfWords #Networking #OpenToWork

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