About
Meet Nicola
I have led an interesting and varied life, from having attended a different school every year until starting high school to having spent the past 25 years in a small town in rural Nova Scotia, Canada. I have an M.Sc. in Microbiology and spent nine years as a volunteer Administrator with a national charity while raising my family. Those capacities required significant writing and editing. I have been told I can be persnickety, have earned the moniker Nitpicker Nic and had it suggested that I should be the founding member of Nitpickers Anonymous by those with whom I have worked (all intended as compliments).
On retiring from the administrative position, I decided to use my 'eagle-eyes' in a different way. I have loved reading for most of my life; in editing fiction I am helping authors write the books I, and by extension others, want to read. While my passion is fiction (especially fantasy), I can work in almost all genres. I established Spit & Polish Editing in 2018, and while I have walked away from both science and my volunteer roles, the skills I learned have stayed with me.
I received my Professional Editing Standards Certificate
from Queen's University
in August 2019. However, I worked with authors (see testimonials
and portfolio gallery) while I studied. You may also be interested in an interview
I did with Queen's Professional Studies' Blog.
In June 2021, I was recognized by Editors Canada with the President's Award for Volunteer Service.
When I'm not editing I enjoy knitting, cross-stitching and gardening.
About Spit & Polish Editing
My grandmother would often say, "A bit of spit and polish and you'll be fit for tea with the Queen." Usually this was said as she cleaned some spot of dirt (unnoticed by us children) from cheeks or knees. While I doubt we would ever have passed muster at the palace, her review and clean up always made us more presentable.
I have been reading speculative fiction for almost 50 years (The Hobbit was my introduction to fantasy). During those years I have been an avid reader, mostly of science fiction and fantasy but also mysteries and romance as the mood struck me. I read the grand masters and grand dames along with newcomers and, more recently, independent authors. Through reading superb fiction, and some less than great books, I have internalized an understanding of what
makes a good story.
When I decided I wanted to edit fiction I sought out professional development from both writing and editing craft books in addition to more formal education. Combined with my years in science honing my critical reading skills, this allows me to identify the how
and why
of a good story.
I bring all of these professional skills and reader acumen to every manuscript I edit. When my reader-sense tells me something is “off” I use my editorial knowledge to determine exactly where the problem lies. I offer suggestions (plural whenever possible) about how to resolve the issue I have identified. But I always leave it to the author to decide which of those suggestions to implement. Sometimes my suggestions stimulate an author to consider other alternatives.
In addition, I have strong language skills, an innate eye for inconsistencies and a scientist’s desire for clarity. I use these to apply the final polish: eliminating wordiness and repetition. If we both do our jobs correctly, your manuscript should only require a proofread or very light copyedit to find the little things that can slip through when adding and deleting materials; things that get missed by those close to a project but that jump out when read with fresh eyes.
Visit my Services
page for more details or my Testimonial
page for what other authors have to say.
Editors Canada has a detailed list of the Standards
to which I ascribe.
