We were lucky to catch up with Kristina Haahr recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Kristina, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
Work ethic has a lot of baggage around it, yeah? You hear the advice to hustle. Or the opposite advice to NOT hustle. There’s the mantra to remember we work to live, not live to work. Or work smarter, not harder, We are all out here balancing big full lives. But I think most of us, regardless of what we work at, want to do a good job. We want to do our “job” well. I’m a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mom, a friend, an advocate, a volunteer, and a business owner. And I want to do my level best in every role. That’s a lot to juggle sometimes. In every instance, it’s not only my capacity for work, but my feelings about work that see me through. My work ethic was formed early. My family has always been my biggest role models. My grandfather owned his own business. My dad was also a business owner. I was so lucky to watch him balance work, married life, parenting, and college at the same time–and do it all successfully. Not by chance, but by his decisions every day to show up and do his best. My brother is an amazing musician and golfer because he makes these skills a priority. And now I see it in my children, how they approach a problem earnestly with curiosity and get to work on a solution. I feel good at the end of the day when I know I’ve given all I could. That percentage might change season to season but there’s nothing like closing my laptop at the end of a work day with the satisfaction of having done my tasks to the best of my ability. And I get it from my family.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a freelance book editor partnering with authors to create clear, compelling, page-turning stories. I work in both nonfiction and fiction. And I especially love travel books, self development, contemporary romance, women’s fiction, and cozy mysteries. Make it a paranormal cozy mystery and I’m over the moon. I work as a true partner for my authors, and my role is clear: to make their book better. To hear their voice, to honor the story they want to share, and to help them tell it well. It’s the stories we allow into our hearts that make us who we are. What an honor and a privilege it is to help self and traditionally publishing authors put something out in the world they are proud to call their own. And a story that can burrow in and leave a lasting impression on the hearts of their readers.
Sometimes when I mention what I do, folks think I get to read stories all day long (I do!) fixing the occasional typo or misspelled word. But editing is so much more than that! As a developmental editor, I work with authors on the big picture of their book. The story arc, character development, readability, plot, flow, the voice as a storyteller, and what’s missing from it all. For line and copy editing, I look at the story paragraph by paragraph, line by line, and word by word examining sentence structure, word choices, pacing, logical sequences, style, formatting, and language choices. I also provide manuscript evaluations to give authors a professional answer to “how’s it going” or beta reading, stepping in as an early reader of an early draft. As a proofreader, I do fix formatting, typos, and misspellings. No matter the service, every manuscript is like fireflies in the summer–full of surprise and promise.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. Community! We are built for relationships–that’s why stories are so important. They bind us together through shared experience. Even the introverts like me. For authors, writing can be a solitary experience where it’s just them, the page, and the story that percolates inside. But there are communities for writers out there to break down some of that solitary work. Groups that offer support, beta readers, help with marketing or finding resources, or even accountability to stay creative. My freelance communities like the Freelance Editors Club hosted by Tara Whitaker has resources for running a business to marketing to sharpening my skills as an editor. And my favorite part, a group of editors doing the same work I do to remind me we aren’t out here figuring it out alone. My family, friends, and geographic communities are also important to my success. What’s that saying . . . no one is an island? Find your community! Love them hard.
2. Curiosity. Think about how much the world has changed, just in our lifetimes. We can’t possibly know everything, ever! And the world of words is always changing. Read a book from twenty years ago and I bet you find something that makes “today you” cringe a little. I love to learn a new editing skill or style and keep up with all the ways language and storytelling continue to evolve. I love being curious about the people I meet, the stories I read, and the experiences happening in real time around me.
3. Work ethic. I was the kid you wanted as your writing partner in high school English because my classmates knew I was going to do a good job. I think my clients now will tell the same story. I work with my whole heart. I want to change the world.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
I was in grad school in my early twenties and an author I had never heard of came to speak at my college. I was young. And broke. And going to a FREE author’s lecture was exactly in my budget. So I sat in this lecture hall with only a handful of other students and listened to Gregory McGuire talk about his book “Wicked.” I was enthralled. By him, by his presence, by his story. I scraped together what money I had in my backpack and queued up to meet him, apologizing for only having enough money for the paperback but would he sign it anyway. And of course he did: “Stay Wicked” he wrote. I devoured that story and the two that followed. At just the right time, someone presented me with this familiar but different a story. As a girl from Kansas, I thought I knew who the bad guy was. But I was wrong. And my whole world blew open. Suddenly words like ethics and morals had new meaning. It wasn’t just right and wrong–there was perspective! In the subsequent weeks and years since I first read “Wicked” I’ve become a more thoughtful, slower to judge, more compassionate person. All because Mr. McGuire wrote a book and came to my school.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kristinahaahr.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thishaahrgetsaround/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristina.haahr
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristina-haahr-482442b7/
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