Coaching
Is your creativity ghosting you?
Get coaching, mentoring and accountability designed for speculative writers - by someone who understands the challenges of sci-fi, fantasy and horror stories.
There can be a lot of pressure when we write genre fiction. Along with the usual writerly challenges of blockages and Getting The Damn Thing Done, SFFH writers can also face comparison demons, judgement, and issues of building believable worlds while achieving satisfying outcomes.
Sometimes, this can buoy us, make us determined to show them all what they're missing out on. Sometimes, though, it can have us cowering in the corner, too nervous to put pen to paper.
Or, maybe you don't care what anyone else things; you just write and write and... oh, eeek! Now you need to put it out there for feedback and maybe even get published?
I founded The Society of Ink Slingers to work with writers like you and help you grow in your craft. Whether you're writing the Next Great Novel or you're in looking to improve your general writing skills - or you want to become a better marketer and crank up your promotion machine - I can help.
One-to-one mentoring and coaching can help you to figure out what you want from your writing, to help you set and achieve goals, and to progress you towards your dreams. It can help you get a handle on your story, or on the business of writing.
Working with me, you get the benefits of:
>25 years' experience as a professional writer, spent across the media, in-house marketing/communications teams and agency life
>A Certified Transformational Coach (trained with Animas)
>The Founder of The Content Type content marketing agency
>A former in-house head of content for global corporates
>A host and community leader with the London Writers Salon
>A member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders
Yeah, but what will it cost?
These are launch rates, so get in quick before they start rising!
The Defrag
Up to 90 minutes of individual, 1:1 coaching and mentoring to either plan and prod your story, or to help you get unstuck.
Cost: £100
6 x 60
One hour of individual coaching in a package of six sessions, spread over a timeframe that works for you - it could be every week, every few weeks, or even every few months. Explore your blocks, plan your story goals, keep on track, get it done.
Cost: £450
6 x 30
As above, but with sessions limited to 30 minutes each. This is suited best for accountability, keeping on track and getting it done - not for the bigger philosophical questions.
Cost: £250
The Get-Some-Serious-Shit-Done Bundle
Over the course of three months, we'll check in weekly for 30 minutes each time (total: 12 sessions). We'll keep track of word count and/or your writing goals. You'll get unlimited (within reason!) WhatsApp or email support and cheerleading. And you'll get monthly feedback on up to 2000 words of your work in progress (total: three feedback sessions for 2000 words; total: 6000 words).
Cost: £1500
(I understand coaching could be useful but out of budget, especially in this cost of living crisis. Discounts are available for low income workers and the unemployed - get in touch and let's see what we can do.)
Who am I?
I’m Lauren McMenemy (she/her), a writer with various hats – journalist, copywriter, content marketer, fiction – who considers herself a storyteller at heart. I was that kid writing “books” and drawing “covers” for them, and it was only when I was encouraged to channel energies into a career that would actually earn a living that I moved away from books and into journalism. Do I regret that? Yes and no…
These days, aged 40-something, I’m back in the fiction world, writing gothic and folk horror. I am also editor of Horror Tree’s Trembling With Fear weekly zine, and enjoy working with writers to help develop their craft - so much so, I’m a certified coach, working as a coach/mentor to writers at all stages of their careers.
[👋 Hi, that's why you're reading this page!]
I have 25 years’ experience as a professional content creator across the media, agencies and in-house communications teams. Based in London for 17 years, I now work as an editor, proofreader, copywriter and marketer. I’m also a mental health advocate; my Substack, How to Be Self(ish), tracked my year of sabbatical and self-care, and I continues to write it (very) irregularly as a mental health companion.
You’ll find me haunting south London, where I live with my Doctor Who-obsessed husband (check out his podcast!) and our aged black house rabbit. You’ll also likely find me hosting Writers' Hour sessions for the London Writers Salon a few times a week.