writing coach hiring

[Bullhajj]

I went to see a woman today who billed herself as a writing coach. Prior to meeting her, I told her my goals and how I thought we might work best together. Today when I met with her, within the first 15 minutes she waves away the project I have hired her to help me with and suggests something completely different. Although she makes quite a case, I decline. Then she scans the work I've brought and mumbles something about me being a good writer and how men always love to talk about their penises. I shit you not.

Anyhow we get to the end of the hour and I realize I don't want to work with her. She asks for a check and I tell her I don't feel good about paying her. She immediately gets up and says, "Well, I never!" She says this so quickly that I believe she has had this very thing happen many many times over. I tell her I'm sorry and I don’t think we're a good fit. She wants to know about her time.

Although I didn't say, I feel as if she has wasted my time. I made it clear to what my goals were and how I wanted to work. If she had been listening, she could have told me she didn't think my project was something she could help out with or at least set my expectations about how much commenting on my work she would be able to do. I was looking for in-depth discussions of character analysis and plot arcs. I just sent her a note explaining all of this and offering to mail her a check for a little over half her hourly rate.

What an awful experience. I am not even sure what I was thinking. In college it was so easy to get a community of like minded writers together for workshops. Nowadays you can't even pay people for that sort of thing. Has anyone else had this sort of problem?

[Stroker Ace]

what the fuck, you cant even bother to pay her for an hour and leave?

i have a feeling your waiter won't be coming by regularly to refill your water in hell.

[chet]

Tim, did you ask a woman to help you write your penis posts here?

[Toddy]

Did you agree to hire her before the meeting? If so, you should pay her for the full hour. But this sounds like an initial get-together, to see if you could work together, sort of like getting an estimate. If that's the case, and you went in with this understanding, I wouldn't give her a dime.

[Bullhajj]

what the fuck, you cant even bother to pay her for an hour and leave?

Is that what you would have done? I am glad I didn't do what you're suggesting. If anything, I wish I laid out the case in my OP.

[Bullhajj]

Did you agree to hire her before the meeting? If so, you should pay her for the full hour. But this sounds like an initial get-together, to see if you could work together, sort of like getting an estimate. If that's the case, and you went in with this understanding, I wouldn't give her a dime.

I agreed to meet her and made clear my expectations. Clearly she expected to be paid for an hour. So neither of us had our expectations met, but I am not sure why I should have to bear the entire financial responsibility.

[Stroker Ace]

sounds iffy then, i guess you never agreed to pay her up front for the consultation?

i'll retract my above damnation :o

[Sharpe]

Did you have any kind of agreement as to compensation before you went to see her Tim? Because her mere expectation of payment is not enough by itself to make a contract, in most circumstances. Without an agreement or a bunch of extenuating circumstances then there's probably no obligation to pay. And in a situation like this (dealing with a stranger), my attitude is the moral obligation to pay follows the legal obligation. In my opinion, if there's no agreement or contract, then you probably have no legal or moral obligation to pay her.

Disclaimer: not legal advice :).

[Jason McCullough]

Pssh, pay up. Who cares.

[Enidigm]

Its hard for me to put into words, but among certain college women, they seem to graduate with a certain kind of "chick lit" writing style/philsophy, that is both totally self referential and seems to only know "men" from what other women have written about the obscure and distasteful subject.

Thing is women, especially these types of women, write very differently than guys. I mean starting things like sentence structure, vocabulary and even basic grammar. They seem both impatient of technical elaboration and complicated but stiff "guy" verbage, yet love the sort of unselfconcious (or stream of conciousness) gossipy writing styles that emphasise "the writers unique voice"; almost, to some extent, more than what the writer is acutally saying. If your "unique voice" is pleasant to hear, they'll cheer enthusiastically as you ramble on about incestuous relationships, ambiguous moralities, The Big Tent of Inclusion, and how you dealt with it all.

This sort of sounds like what you encountered, although i'm sure she had some personal ideosyncracies i can't generalize as easily :).

As for paying her? How much did you agree per hour? If its < 20$, i'd just pay her and be done. If you agreed to over 100+, i'd cut it in half or just not pay at all. Somewhere between those two just depends upon how tight up you are about money.

[Bullhajj]

Thanks for the non-legal advice Dan. :)

I just thought about us not having a contract when I answered Todd's post. I'm glad to know I am legally in the right, but I honestly don't feel like I ripped her off.

I only felt bad because it was just such an over-the-top bad experience and I couldn't pull it together enough to articulate how I felt at the end. When I realized I couldn't pay her, I got all these butterflies in my stomach. I am really glad I didn't just pay her, because then I lose all the power. Going home and summing my feelings up in email and offering her half her rate felt much better. :)

It really is not the amount of money. I just have a really impacted schedule and had to go out of my way to meet with this gal (she's in West Seattle). I sent her almost half a dozen emails detailing my expectations, just so this wouldn't happen. I guess she just was too busy to actually read any of them.

[Brad Grenz]

What does a writing coach do? Workshop your writing for money? Is it like an editor you pay?

[MattKeil]

What does a writing coach do? Workshop your writing for money? Is it like an editor you pay?

As opposed to editors for charity?

[Equis]

What does a writing coach do? Workshop your writing for money? Is it like an editor you pay?

As opposed to editors for charity?

Good writers get editors to pay them.

One day, I would like to say, 'pay us'.

[Bullhajj]

What does a writing coach do? Workshop your writing for money? Is it like an editor you pay?

Hard to say as I haven't worked with one yet. :) But that was my understanding, yes.

[BaconTastesGood]

Have you considered just joining a writer's group or workshop? Plenty of them on-line that enjoy criticizing each other =)

[Bullhajj]

Have you considered just joining a writer's group or workshop? Plenty of them on-line that enjoy criticizing each other =)

Yes, I have. Most people I meet are doing some sort of genre fiction, which is fine, but not really what I am interested in.

[BaconTastesGood]

Have you considered just joining a writer's group or workshop? Plenty of them on-line that enjoy criticizing each other =)

Yes, I have.

...and?

[Bullhajj]

Have you considered just joining a writer's group or workshop? Plenty of them on-line that enjoy criticizing each other =)

Yes, I have.

...and?

Heh. Too quick for me. Most of the writers I know are diong some sort of genre fiction and are really expecting certain conventions. I find that jumping in with something really different isn't that productive.

[BaconTastesGood]

Heh. Too quick for me. Most of the writers I know are diong some sort of genre fiction and are really expecting certain conventions. I find that jumping in with something really different isn't that productive.

True. But if you're jumping in with something "really different" then a writing coach -- who, in most cases, is a failed writer -- isn't really going to be much help either. If you're going to be wacky different, sometimes you just gotta do it.

Best advice I ever got about writing was: "If you're a writer, then write."

Pretty simple and straightforward =)

[Bullhajj]

As for paying her? How much did you agree per hour? If its < 20$, i'd just pay her and be done. If you agreed to over 100+, i'd cut it in half or just not pay at all. Somewhere between those two just depends upon how tight up you are about money.

Frugal advice from the selfishgene. :)

For the most part, I have had really good luck with women writers when I was an undergrad. Still, I think you are correct about how some people have a difficult time looking past others writing styles. I have the same problem with some people's work. I guess her comment about penises just caught me off guard, because it was really sexist and didn't make sense in relation to the piece she read. So your generalizations about women may be accurate and I've just had good fortune all these years. :)

[Jamie Madigan]

Tim when I read your OP it sounded more or less like an interview --with her as the interviewee and you as the interviewer or prospective employer. You wanted to see if you two were a good fit in that regard. People normally don't pay applicants to interview or audition for a job and it doesn't sound like she did much work. Just a cursory review of your stuff.

A simple "Sorry, I don't think there's a fit here." would have done it for me.

Online writers' groups can be pretty flakey. Granted, I've only been part of one where we submitted/critiqued short stories, but it fell apart after about 3 rounds. With only a couple of exceptions people just would/could not provide useful feedback and criticism. If you find a good one, stick with it. And then get me in. :)