When the editor becomes the author: Lessons from both sides of the desk

To mark World Book Day and celebrate the National Year of Reading 2026, we speak to CIEP member, editor and author Catriona Turner about what it means to inhabit both roles.

In this feature, Catriona reflects on writing her memoir Nest: a memoir of home on the move – a book born from years of relocation across continents and from a search for identity, belonging and purpose. What began as blog posts about life on the move evolved into a published memoir, shaped through drafts, developmental editing and the courage to let the work go.

Drawing on her experience from both sides of the desk, Catriona reflects on separating the creator and editor mindsets, learning to receive feedback, and the trust that underpins every successful author-editor relationship. She shares practical insight for fellow editorial professionals, as well as encouragement for anyone quietly harbouring a book idea of their own. 

Together, we explore what changes when the editor becomes the client, what authors are really hoping for from their editors, and how finishing a book can transform both practice and perspective.

About Catriona 

Catriona Turner is a Scottish writer and editor. Before living abroad, she worked as an English teacher in Scottish schools. She has since spent 14 years globally mobile with her family, living in France (three times), Uganda, the Republic of Congo and Denmark. 

Her first book, Nest: a memoir of home on the move, was published in June 2023. Her writing has also appeared in anthologies, and she had a regular column in the Danish magazine The International. The TEDx talk she delivered in November 2024, titled ‘Find Your Main Character Energy’, is available to watch on YouTube. 

The book

Q: How did Nest: A memoir of home on the move come about – and at what point did you realise it was a book you wanted to publish? 

A: Just weeks after I got engaged to my now-husband, his company asked him to move to southern France for three years. I left my teaching career in Aberdeen to embark on the adventure with him, and we returned 14 years later with our sons, having moved eight times between Scotland, France, Uganda, the Republic of Congo and Denmark. Nest: a memoir of home on the move shares how I lost, and then found again, my sense of home, belonging and identity along the way. 

Part of that process was realising I was stuck in the mindset that I was supposed to stay on one career path. When I finally let go of that, it was liberating to have the gift of starting again, with no expectations. I gave that gift to my 16-year-old self and started writing. On my blog, The Frustrated Nester, I shared our adventures as well as the challenges of finding purpose and raising a family amid transition and culture shock.

Meanwhile, I went on writing retreats and courses, including the Writing a Novel course with Faber Academy. For me, the hardest part of fiction is coming up with the plot – my writing is motivated more by crafting sentences and evoking a sense of place than by the big picture. One November evening, in a library in Esbjerg, Denmark, when I got stuck once again on ‘what happens next’ in my NaNoWriMo* draft, it occurred to me I already had a fascinating story that I didn’t have to make up! My blog about the challenges of life on the move was resonating deeply with many readers, and a memoir could be the path to achieving my authorly ambitions. That novel draft is still waiting for me to return to it! 

Wearing two hats: Editor and author 

Q: What was it like to move from shaping other people’s words to writing and publishing your own – and how did your editor’s mindset influence that process? 

A: I didn’t feel like I was stepping into the role of author until I booked my developmental editor and added that hard deadline to my calendar. Crossing the threshold between writer and author felt like levelling up, like shifting from baby writer to adult author. But taking that leap was a lot less daunting than it might have been if I wasn’t already ‘in publishing’ and intimate with the process of getting from draft to book. 

I have tangible ways of working that help separate my creator and editor brains. When I’m writing, I often use sprints to draft quickly without second-guessing myself, and I even do a kind of invisible drafting – typing with the font turned white, or into my phone with the screen out of sight – so I can’t see mistakes or anything else I’d want to change until later. I sometimes think of drafting as ‘throwing down the clay’ – getting messy words on the page that can then be ‘moulded’ into something else. It’s helpful that I write in Scrivener and edit in Word, so that my brain behaves differently when it sees each program on the screen. I also edit on a bigger second monitor, so as soon as I moved my own manuscript onto that monitor, my brain started seeing my own words more objectively.  

Of course, there’s no perfect objectivity with our own words, so hiring someone else was crucial. It was very instructive to be in the client’s shoes when I got my manuscript back from my developmental editor, to go through the gamut of emotions from anticipation to disappointment to defensiveness to acceptance to gratitude. I’m sure those tough days were easier for me than for other authors though, because I knew her only goal was to improve my work. The only tough part for me is the thought of other editors judging my style choices with the knowledge that I’m also an editor!

Process and practice 

Q: What did your writing and revision process look like in practice, and how did you decide when it was time to let the manuscript go? 

A: My first proper draft of Nest happened as part of NaNoWriMo* 2019, but it was more like 50,000 words of brainstorming. I did a lot of invisible drafting to get down memories and reflections without worrying about how they worked as a story. From there, I looked for a structure with a narrative arc, and rebooted the second draft several times as I experimented with ways to give the reader a narrative thread through a decade of my life. I worked regularly online with an accountability partner who was also writing a memoir. She helped me nail down the core theme and character arc, and with my third full draft it started to feel like a book. 

Somewhere in that process we moved location again, so it took about three years until I was ready to hire a developmental editor. That timing was less about judging whether the manuscript was ready, and more about getting into the mindset of finishing. The idea of ‘release’ became important – we use that word for films but less often for other creative works. But letting go is inevitable. I knew that without a deadline I could endlessly find ways to improve the manuscript. But I was eager to get my imperfect story into the world and move on to something else. There’s only so much we can learn from constantly iterating and improving the same thing, whereas the lessons from finishing something inform the next project. With yet another move coming up, I scheduled the final stages of editing and publication to happen before another months-long spell of distraction could stop me.

Being edited as an editor 

Q: How did it feel to have your own work edited – and did the experience change the way you approach editing others? 

A: Having my own work edited was probably more comfortable for me than it might be for other authors. I was confident that I was sending my manuscript to a publishing professional who had no interest in judging me as a writer (or person, which memoirists are more vulnerable to) but was committed to improving the story on the page as she saw it. I even looked forward to what her objectivity would bring to my work.  

Like almost every author, I was of course surprised that what I thought I had beautifully achieved on the page was not yet ready for readers! The advice to take a few days with the feedback and not instantly react was so valuable. This is why our role as objective first readers is so important to a writer’s process; we can guide them to where the ‘telepathy’ between writer and reader, as Stephen King calls it, is falling short. 

I think all good editors have empathy for the writer, but having experienced editing myself, I’m probably more aware of helping writers feel looked after, especially first-time authors. And it reminded me that, while a writer can learn about their writing from my editing input, I can’t make any assumptions about what they do or don’t know. For example, I left a couple of passages in my manuscript even though I knew they were ‘darlings’ I might have to kill, because I wanted my editor’s opinion first.

Advice and reflection 

Q: What would you say to editorial professionals who are quietly harbouring a book idea – and what do you wish readers understood more about the journey behind a finished book? 

A: I’d tell anyone with a book idea to just write, with the reminder that no one sees your writing until you decide. Some writers get ahead of themselves and imagine barriers that can’t even exist until they’ve written something that looks like a book. Until you have a manuscript you are ready to send to someone else, you are free to play, to experiment, to write something ‘bad’ you can come back to later and improve – no one will ever see it. The ‘gap’ between our words on day one and what we want them to look like in the future is a barrier we can only get past by writing through it.

Writing Nest taught me so much! I would recommend anyone to write a memoir; in finding a narrative for your own life you learn profoundly about yourself. The process of connecting my life events into a narrative, giving myself a character arc, was like turning over the messy back of a tapestry to see it from the front. I understood myself better. I was able to be kinder to myself. 

I also learned that I was able to finish a book! To be among the tiny percentage of people in the world who not only start but finish writing and then publish a book is an accomplishment I’ll always have, and it’s a powerful confidence builder. 

This World Book Day, I want readers to understand what I won’t stop telling my teenage sons: more than ever in this world, the ability and willingness to focus your attention for the length of a book is a superpower. There’s a powerful impact on your life from having read a book from beginning to end, whether from learning its subject matter, or from empathising with someone different, or from simply being immersed in another world and letting it hold your attention. In a book, we go deeper into subject or story than we can with any other reading. And when a writer has spent months and years learning, reflecting, crafting, revising and moulding their insight or storytelling powers – all yours for the taking? It’s probably worth a few hours of your time. 

References 

*NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month was a global community of writers who rose to the challenge of writing 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November, meaning 1,667 words a day. The original organisation no longer exists, but other similar challenges have been launched. I highly recommend this kind of challenge, especially for writers who find that their inner editor slows them down too much. 

The following book is mentioned by Catriona in her interview. The link is included for reference. 

• Nest: A memoir of home on the move by Catriona Turner: Nest: a memoir of home on the move - ebook - Payhip