A Little More About Me

Hi! For anyone new here, I’m Mary. I started this blog a few months ago now, so I figured it might be time to give you a little more insight into who I am.

Disclaimer

I have a nice, concise bio elsewhere on my site if you want more of a summary—just the top notes, if you will—but if you want a more personal recount of my journey along with my delightful commentary, buckle up.

Second disclaimer

I find it hard to talk about myself, as I’m sure will be evident if you choose to continue reading. On the other hand, it’s also kind of hard to write a weekly blog while maintaining a sort of distant, ghostly presence. “Who is this person and why do I give a fig about what they have to say?” Entirely fair questions to ask. Or, maybe that’s just how I’m picturing it and you don’t care. Either way, it’s my blog, so I’m doing it!

In this post:

• How I wound up here

• Me beyond editing

• What I’m writing

How I wound up here

When I think about my start as a writer, I often think back to the first grade. A wee lass, bright-eyed and busy-tailed, I had yet to acquire the mature, nuanced emotion that we generally call shame. I would of course experience that feeling later on in life (especially as someone who speaks frequently of a fear of being perceived), but in those days, bravery came easily. I felt no fear walking up to the front of my class (with permission from my teacher) and reading aloud a little story I’d written.

Plenty of writers embody the moody, muted character withdrawn to the back corner of a cafe, poring over a manuscript. As a small child, I wasn’t exactly writing my magnum opus while sipping an americano (I’m more of a tea drinker anyway), but I did enjoy my own company even back then, and I know that by the time I was in the first grade, writing already had me transfixed. I think of this time as foundational, not because I was writing stories, but because I felt compelled to share them. And that—connecting with people through the written word—is what I think really makes a writer.

As I grew up, I dabbled here and there, mostly in the fantasy genre, but I never really settled on any one project until part of the way through high school. I would sit in the library with friends before class and scribble out the (very loose) ideas that I had for a story.

Later in high school, I took Writers Craft as one of my electives, and at that point, I started to notice a bit of a shift in my pursuit. Classmates frequently asked me to review their work. I’d comb through their stories and poems, writing out notes carefully explaining my suggestions and rationale, and it seemed like they appreciated it. They kept coming back, at any rate.

It did help that I loved language. I followed that passion through to university, where I studied English and classical civilizations. Along with studying literature and literary critique, I got a chance to delve into the meaning and etymologies of words, which, if you have the time for it, is a really helpful basis for so much of writing.

During my bachelor’s I became a founding member of two writing groups where we shared work for critique. I learned a lot and often wondered about switching into a more specific editing or publishing degree, but for whatever reason, it always seemed so daunting. Naturally, I decided it was much more reasonable to pivot completely and enrol in a program to become a commercial airline pilot. I still love aviation to this day, but as it happened, the program was eventually collapsed into another and the new time and place just didn’t work for me. Worried that if I didn’t make a move now, I’d end up in school forever, I struck out into the working world.

My career, much like my education, was full of twists and turns. I was often the person people asked to fix problems, which led to a number of different positions and my building a wide, if not particularly deep, set of skills. I did everything from shipping compliance to project management, built processes for a few departments and finally landed in human resources where I started as a training and development lead. Out of all the places I could be in the corporate world, this one felt the most like home. But I kept thinking back to writing and, more so, to editing. In all of the roles I’d had, I had somehow always done a lot of it. It was interesting to me, and, just like before, I kept getting asked to do it.

Eventually, I decided I had to give it an earnest shot. I went back to school (to a great part-time course at Queen’s University), joined the Chartered Institute for of Editing and Proofreading as well as Editors Canada (where I have just become the Toronto branch programs chair) and set about starting my own business: Elixir Editorial.

And that brings us to today. But people aren’t just a string of academic and professional events, so I figured I’d share a little about who I am when I’m at home.

Me beyond editing

As you might have guessed, I hail from Toronto. I live here with my husband, two of our close friends (because living in the city is expensive, but also because we get on like a house on fire), two cats named Mina and Lucy (yes, like that Mina and Lucy) and, more recently, a dog named John Dexter (he mainly just goes by Dexter).

Mina (above) and Lucy (below).

For anyone worried, his ears are normally symmetrical—he's just goofy.

(It’s entirely possible you’ll be seeing more of these three.)

My current living situation is something of a spiritual successor to the big, multi-generational family household I grew up in. Though I still enjoy time to reflect and be by myself, I thrive when I’m in a loving, supportive community.

I’m also a big nerd, and a lot of my interests and hobbies hint at that, if they don’t outright declare it. I’m part of a longstanding roleplaying campaign that I attend on a weekly basis and I’ve been known to enjoy the odd game of Magic: the Gathering.

Otherwise, I put my classical civilization minor and linguistics classes to good use for world-building and especially when I delve into constructed language. Both cross over with my writing practice, and after actual decades (oh dear) of working on a particular setting, I hope to finally tell a story set there.

If I’m honest, I’m not quite sure if aviation, singing and DIY projects fit the trend (though I can tell you I was inspired to get into aviation because of Star Wars), but they do fit me. And, in case you’re wondering, though I didn’t end up getting into aviation professionally, it’s on my bucket list to someday get my recreational license.

What I’m writing

My most recent writing project is at that funny stage where I’d like to refine it ad nauseam, but I should really hand it off to someone else to look at.

Yes, even editing professionals do this. Just not when it’s other people’s work. And don’t worry, I have in fact handed my manuscript off to a colleague. It seems counterintuitive, but no matter how much I know about editing, it all flies out the window when it comes to my own writing. I take comfort in knowing that this is the norm.

But enough about that—what is the project? Well, if you remember the story I mentioned starting during high school, after years of writing off and on, I’m happy to say it’s the closest it’s ever been to publication. Time will tell what the next stage brings, but it’s certainly been a journey unto itself. In fact, the current version of the story looks nothing like its predecessor, but that’s okay, and I can assure you it’s even a good thing. It’s a story that’s grown with me, one I’ve refined and shaped over the years as my skills have grown.

If you’re curious about it, it’s a speculative (what else?) Victorian Gothic novel about a reclusive society, the eccentric leader of said society and the people whose lives he touches. Just a taste for now, mainly because this is a blog about your writing, not mine. That said, I may post about it here from time to time, especially since it could prove useful to see a project go through the editing process from the perspective of the writer.

Now that I’m not actively working on that particular story, I have another I will probably shift to. As I said, I have a setting I’ve been working on for ages now (longer than the current project, if you can believe it) and I’m dying to start exploring it. The first story I have in mind is a fantasy romance which is foundational to the mythology of the world. I have designs to do something of an anthology series within the setting, but again, we’ll see.

Anyway, enough about me! Next week we’ll get back into the good stuff: the deep dives into the principles of writing and editing, starting with building characters. See you then!

Mary Kehoe provides structural, stylistic and copy editing services for a variety of written works through her agency, Elixir Editorial. From time to time she dabbles in her own writing projects which tend toward the speculative genre.

She is a member of both Editors Canada and the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), as well as a founding member and former chair of the Toronto Arts & Letters Club writing group. A longtime lover of the English language, Mary is passionate about supporting writers on the journey to inspire the world.