Helen Sedgwick: Editing as the Creative Process

Helen Sedgwick is the best teacher I have ever had! After watching this, I know why I didn't finish writing my novel. I'll let the panic subside--after 11 years, why panic? I never finished the first draft!! I've refined the first 160 pages over and over again without knowing the end. I'll slow down to enjoy. If it feels like work and not pleasure, I'll work on something else for a while. Love you, Helen! Thank you for reminding me that we are artists creating art.

Helen Sedgwick: 

Editing as the Creative Process

Streamed live on Oct 1, 2021, at:

Wigtown Book Festival 

(Copy from You-tube)

"The idea of editing is enough to fill some writers with dread – but Helen Sedgwick wants to change all that. As part of our series of events for writers, in this online seminar Helen will talk about the interplay between writing and editing in her own creative work, and how editing is an essential part of the creative development of her novels. Covering the different types of editing there are and looking at how the editing process feeds into structure, plot, character development and storytelling, she will dispel the common fear of edits and show how editing can be exciting, creative, and even liberating. With examples from her most recent novel, Where the Missing Gather, and her own experience as both author and literary editor, she will give you a fresh look at the process of editing your own work as the craft at the heart of creative writing. "About the author: Helen Sedgwick is the author of The Comet Seekers and The Growing Season, which was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year in 2018. The opener to her Burrowhead Mysteries crime trilogy, When the Dead Come Calling, was published in 2020, followed by Where the Missing Gather in 2021. She has an MLitt in Creative Writing from Glasgow University and has won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. She is the 2021 Dr Gavin Wallace Fellow. Before she became an author, she was a research physicist with a PhD in Physics from Edinburgh University. She lives in the Scottish Highlands."