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The Writing Coach

Literary Consultancy and Coaching for Writers from Jacqui Lofthouse

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Testimonials

Julia Crouch

Author of five novels including Her Husband’s Lover, Cuckoo and Tarnished

At the beginning of 2009 I had a dozen short stories, two novels in rough draft, and an unfinished screenplay. I was writing in my spare time – I was a full time website designer and have three children. I had no idea what writing project to concentrate on, and had completely stalled. A friend recommended Jacqui and, over six months, she gave me the confidence to take the big step of committing a whole year to one project. She also provided excellent literary feedback, helping me turn my first chapters into little diamonds.

Now, my first novel Cuckoo – the one Jacqui helped me with – has been published by Headline. I am about to hand my editor my second. I have one of the best agents in the country, have sold Italian, French, German and Dutch rights and I write full time. I can say unequivocally that if I hadn’t contacted Jacqui I would still be battling with html. These days the only website I look after is my own!

Dan Sherrard-Smith

Author and Founder of Hope for Planet Earth

Jacqui is a wonderful writing coach, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her to others, and have in fact done just that! She is warm, understanding, kind and insightful. Passionate about stories, deeply knowledgeable about the art of writing and, most of all, a thoroughly brilliant person.

Carolyn Kirby

Carolyn Kirby

Author of The Conviction of Cora Burns

Without Jacqui, I would not now be a published author. She was there at several key points in my writing career with the advice and encouragement that allowed me to make the move to the next stage.

When I began feeling my way towards writing fiction, Jacqui’s gentle guidance steered me onto the right path. I can see now how much time her assistance saved me; working out the rules of story telling would have taken so much longer on my own.

Later on, when Jacqui had become a trusted friend, she provided invaluable help when I was struggling to find an agent. Despite consistently doing well in competitions, my novel (then called Half of You) seemed unable to entice any agents to bite. I was at a crossroads. After nearly ten years of writing, I felt that I had progressed as far as I could without being published. If this novel could not secure representation, I wasn’t sure that I had the heart to start another.

At this point Jacqui suggested several new agents for me to try. One of them, Andrew Lownie, was entirely new to me. It seemed miraculous when his agency made me an offer of representation almost as soon as I had sent him my book. Rights were then sold both in the UK and US and the novel, now titled The Conviction of Cora Burns will be simultaneously published in March 2019, with an audio book forthcoming later in the year.

My diary is now filling up with debut author speaking events, and my novel has been submitted for a range of prestigious prizes including the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The coming year looks exactly like the future I could only dream of during those years as an unpublished writer. There are so many people who have helped me on this journey in many different ways, but Jacqui Lofthouse is at the head of my list.

Afrika Green

Writer and internationally renowned drummer

I still remember the day I signed up with Jacqui at the Writing Coach. We had a brief chat on the phone and I chose the year long mentorship package. In many ways it was a life-changing decision, I hadn’t written a story before. I completed my memoir under Jacqui’s supervision and am now in the process of pitching to agents. The whole process gave me the validation that I am a writer and now have the confidence to take on new challenges like writing articles for my local paper and looking to complete my next book.

Aline Preto

Author of Among Shadows

I found The Writing Coach years ago and the process I undertook with Jacqui was key to help me understand my strengths as a writer as well as learning how to identify the personal patterns that were getting in the way of my ability to write. Now, I’ve recently used their services again to line edit the final version of my debut novel and I couldn’t be happier with the knowledgeable feedback and results. It has truly been a great experience.

Diana Morgan-Hill

Author of Love & Justice

Word count Tuesday to Friday – 4,500!! Blimey! What sort of magic fairy writing dust are you scattering?! This is the key to me – I think – not giving up on writing where I would have done before. Whatever you’re helping me to reveal about myself, thank you … I’m going to start calling you a white witch as well!

Dr. Victoria Best

Author of An Introduction to Twentieth Century French Literature

Finding Jacqui has been the best thing I’ve done in furthering my writing career – better by far than any course I’ve undertaken or any help I’ve received from agents and editors. Trying to make the transition from academic writing to commercial non-fiction is not easy, but thanks to Jacqui’s insight and support, I finally feel like I might be ready to make it happen. For the first time, I know what I want to do and how I’m going to do it! What I’ve appreciated most of all has been her uncommon ability to put her finger on what needs to change, and to express it in a way that actually motivates me to rewrite. I’ve learned so much, and thoroughly enjoyed it, too. I’d recommend her to all the struggling, baffled and overwhelmed writers I know, if I didn’t want to keep her all to myself…

Rachel Connor

Author of Sisterwives and Lecturer in Creative Writing, Leeds Beckett University

This was such a useful session, Jacqui. You somehow managed to get under the skin of what I’ve been struggling with and make sense of it. You offered practical suggestions (visual maps, mind maps, thinking of the shape of the year) and you understood the spiritual/emotional dimension of what writing means to me too, I think, but without us having a heavy handed discussion about this. I felt you offered a really good framework – led by me, reflective questions, making me think about my priorities – and also offered support/cheerleading as well as suggestions for how things might work more effectively. Thank you. It was great! Just what I needed…

Louise McIvor

Writer and Creative Writing Tutor, Open Learning Dept.  Queen’s University, Belfast

I had a collection of short stories (some unfinished), three ‘not-quite there’ novels and a vague idea that I wanted to teach creative writing, after working in the media for many years.

Jacqui focused on the marketing aspect of my work. She taught me how to write a succinct covering letter and biography, a good synopsis and I still use this ‘template’ when I wish to send work out to agents, editors and publishers.

We extended this marketing into teaching applications and Jacqui taught me that ‘selling yourself’ is simply about taking a professional approach to your writing career.

Perhaps the most important thing to come out of the mentoring process was learning how to focus on one project at a time.

I found the mentoring process with Jacqui enormously helpful and nearly, five years on, I am still using Jacqui’s tips in my writing life.

I now teach creative writing, write regularly for a woman’s magazine and thanks to Jacqui, have learnt how to ‘fit writing around the edges’ of the rest of my life.

Thank you, Jacqui.

Paul Roberts

Author of The Economist Guide to Project Management

Jacqui was honest and articulate. She appreciates the challenges which a writer can face and was able to provide empathy. She was also able to draw upon a wealth of expertise. The entire coaching process helped me to step outside of being the author and see my book ‘from the outside’. In turn, I gave myself a few months breathing space and returned to it recently with fresh eyes and enthusiasm. I doubt this would have happened without Jacqui’s insights.

Kirsten Fogg

Winner of the 2015 Carte Blanche / CNFC competition for Creative Nonfiction

When I started working with Jacqui Lofthouse, we were in the middle of extensive renovations and Brisbane flooded just as my four-year old was trying to toilet train her toddler sister. I had stuffed a rough draft of a novel that didn’t really work under a bed along with my journalistic career. I wanted to write something that mattered to me but I had no idea how to go about it and years of journalism seemed to have killed my creativity. I also didn’t believe I could do it, nor did I have any idea about how to do what I didn’t know I wanted to do.

Call it a crisis of confidence. Writing every day, keeping a journal, was something I’d always wanted to do, but never had. Not through my wild 20s in Paris, or traveling alone in third-world countries. My words and thoughts and experiences all seemed so trite and, well, boring.

Jacqui, in her calm and supportive way, changed this. She probably doesn’t even know the effect she’s had on me. Working online with Jacqui, while she sat in her studio in London and I in my study in Brisbane, I developed a regular writing practice. I got up at 5am every day during the week when the house was quiet and I wrote. About anything. I pulled together two rough drafts of novels because of her weekly accountability system, which I still maintain today. I realized, under Jacqui’s gentle guidance, that writing in a notebook and finishing a novel were the first and last steps in a many layered process. Perhaps I should have known this since I’ve already written hundreds of articles but writing about something that matters to me was different. Jacqui taught me to keep putting aside the inner critic, to try to accomplish one thing every day no matter how small to advance my writing, to believe that it would become something bigger.

And it did. I fell in love with creative nonfiction and started writing personal essays. I sent them off: rejected, rejected, rejected, Short-listed! rejected, rejected, rejected, Winner! Now I’m working on a collection of essays about belonging and I attribute part of my success in creative nonfiction to the fact that I was able to incorporate techniques of fiction that I learned from Jacqui.

Working with Jacqui laid the foundation for a professional career in writing that mattered to me. She gave me the confidence to keep going, to take writing risks, to put my honest voice on the page. She still does.

How can someone else possibly impart a belief in oneself as a writer? I have no idea. You’ll have to ask Jacqui.

Michael MacMahon

Author of Back to the Black: How to become debt-free and stay that way

Jacqui has acted as a mentor for the self-publishing and marketing of my first book. She has far exceeded my expectations. Whenever I look at Jacqui’s website, or read her newsletters, I wonder how on earth she has time to fit everything in. However, when you have a coaching or mentoring session with Jacqui you get the impression that yours is the only project she’s working on, such is the quality of her focus. Her follow-ups in between sessions by means of regular e-mails, chasing connections and weblinks and coming up with new ideas, are a real bonus and totally admirable. I therefore recommend Jacqui without hesitation to any writer seeking to complete and publish a book; whether print or ebook or both; whether you want to self-publish, as I did, or chase a mainstream publisher, she’ll be an invaluable partner.

Caroline Doherty de Novoa

Caroliine Doherty de Novoa

Author of Dancing with Statues

I came to Jacqui with an early draft of my first novel. Her feedback was detailed, constructive and well thought out. She was able to point out and explain to me exactly what was and wasn’t working. I had previously taken a few writing courses and read lots of books on creative writing. However, I learned more from studying Jacqui’s feedback on my work than any course. Her comments not only improved that particular novel but they also made me a better writer in general.

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– The Daily Mail

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About The Writing Coach

Jacqui Lofthouse

The Writing Coach was founded in 2005 by the novelist Jacqui Lofthouse. An international mentoring and development organisation for writers, it is also an online home for writers, somewhere you can find advice, information, motivation and most of all encouragement for your writing work ... read more

The Modigliani Girl

Anna Bright never wanted to write a novel. At least, that’s what she tells herself. But a chance encounter with a famous novelist and a surprise gift of an art book cut a chink in Anna’s resolve. The short, tragic life of Modigliani’s mistress, Jeanne Hébuterne, becomes an obsession and before she knows it, she has enrolled on a creative writing course, is writing about a fictional Jeanne and mixing with the literati.

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Recent Posts

  • Our Charity Literary Event for War Child
  • Inside Story – The Writing Coach Membership
  • Michelle Graham Taylor and The Ghost Of A Lie
  • The Writing Life of PD Viner, Crime Writer and Crime Writing Mentor
  • An interview with author Bryony Pearce

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✨Join us this Saturday for our Workshop "Writer' ✨Join us this Saturday for our Workshop "Writer's Devotion"✨

If you are a writer who desires to connect deeply to your writing work – to understand your motivation and utilise it so that you are truly drawn to your writing desk – our online workshop on Saturday 7th May “Writer’s Devotion” is perfect for you. 📚

🖋📖 This workshop will support you as you commit to your writing in an entirely new way. In our time together, we’ll examine our individual relationship with our writing work and we’ll consider how we can become more connected with our writing, so that we write with a sense of ease and flow. 

✨ The first workshop ‘Writer’s Devotion’ covers:
• The full blueprint relating to Mindset as a writer
• How to leverage your unique writing purpose
• Developing deep self-belief that will sustain your practice
• Practical steps to enable you to commit to your writing
• How to develop a writing ritual
• Knowing we are working on the ‘right’ project
• How to use these tools to become a serious writer
• Resilience as a writer
• Commitment to your craft
• Q & A with Jacqui Lofthouse

I would love to meet you there! You can discover more about our follow up workshops on Writer's Alchemy and Writer's Connection here too... ✨

Link in profile

#writingcoach #writingworkshop #amwriting #writinglife #writinghabits #writingritual #writersofinstagram
We love these sketches of our ‘Fragile Borders,F We love these sketches of our ‘Fragile Borders,Fragile Bodies’ event last Friday by our Founder @jacquilofthouse’s husband, live-illustrator @davidlewiscartoons.

It was such a fascinating evening with Miranda Gold, @alicejolly_  @ana.sefer and #FranLock @sunseekerspoetry raising £780 which we will be donating to @warchilduk 

#literature #liveillustration #visualiser #graphicfacilitation #warchild #literaryevents #tintabernacle
We’re thrilled to welcome @annasianjeffersonauth We’re thrilled to welcome @annasianjeffersonauthor to our team - she is a qualified coach, published author, playwright and strategic thinker. Who will be her first client via us, I wonder? 

 “Anna is a fiction writer and playwright. She has written for stage and screen since 2005. She has had two novels published with Orion, Winging It and Nailing It and is currently working on her third novel. She is the founder and co-director of Broken Leg Theatre and has written and toured five plays. Anna is an experienced workshop leader and facilitator. She is Co-Director of Writing Around the Kids. The project enables mothers of young children to write creatively, working in partnership with regional museums and a network of published female authors.

As a trained Life Coach with Relation Dynamics 1st, Anna incorporates coaching into her practice. Anna works part-time as Theatre Relationship Manager at Arts Council England and lives in Brighton with her husband and two children.”

#lifecoaching #writing #writingcommunity #writerssupportingwriters #authorssupportingauthors #writingcoach
Posted @withregram • @ana.sefer Thanks so much t Posted @withregram • @ana.sefer Thanks so much to everyone who came to Fragile Borders, Fragile Bodies on Friday, which raised £780 for #warchild Illuminating discussion and great readings from @alicejolly_  Fran Lock, Miranda Gold and myself :) .. beautifully chaired by @jacquilofthouse 
And what a wonderful venue The Tin Tabernacle Church in Kilburn is!
We are really looking forward to tomorrow's event We are really looking forward to tomorrow's event 'Fragile Borders, Fragile Bodies', at The Tin Tabernacle church in London at 6.30pm. 

This week we wanted to introduce our guest speakers who will be joining us tomorrow, and today we'd like to introduce Ana Seferović.

Ana is a poet and writer from Belgrade, interested in the relationship between systems and the individual.  She is especially fascinated by outcasts, particularly the outcast in each and every one of us, because an outcast is where either a system or an individual (or both) are breaking. She has co-authored a radio show and art platform PornoPop, examining sex and body as a battlefield of politics, art, literature and culture.

Find out more about Ana, Fragile Borders, Fragile Bodies and book tickets via the link in our bio. All proceeds will be donated to the charity War Child @warchilduk

In addition, the Laura Kinsella Foundation has generously agreed to double any donations we receive up to a limit of £300.

#RefugeeCrisis #UkraineConflict
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