We were lucky to catch up with Meg McIntyre recently and have shared our conversation below.

Meg, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later?

Though it’s easy to wonder how our lives might be different if we had chosen another path or found our way a bit sooner, I feel pretty strongly that I was meant to start my business when I did. I left my full-time role as a newspaper journalist in 2020, several months into the pandemic, when I realized that the work just wasn’t sustainable for me anymore. At first, I thought that becoming a freelance writer was just going to be a stopgap until I found something else, but I quickly realized that being in charge of my own work was incredibly freeing and empowering. It gave me the space and flexibility to explore, and that’s what led to me becoming a fiction editor. If I hadn’t experienced the instability and uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, I’m not sure I would have been bold enough to take the leap and try branching out on my own.

Even though my path to this point has been a bit winding — from working in magazines to teaching English in France to reporting for local newspapers to finally becoming my own boss — I’ve also realized that all of those experiences were pivotal in shaping my worldview and helping me build skills that would one day be really useful to me as an editor. So I don’t regret waiting until I had wandered a bit before starting my business. Trying all of those different things helped me find confidence in my ability to adapt, and to take what I’ve learned and apply it in new ways.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi there! I’m Meg McIntyre and I’m a writer, a fiction editor, a Gateless Writing teacher, and more generally a lover of all things creative. I primarily work with authors of dark fiction (what I affectionately call “books that go bump in the night”) and I specialize in developmental editing, which is all about story craft — dissecting characters, refining story arcs, and helping reveal the beating heart at the center of each novel. I also host Gateless Writing workshops designed to help creatives quiet the inner critic and embrace their artistic intuition.

I’ve always been fascinated by language. I spent much of my childhood with my nose in a book and I dreamed of becoming a writer from an early age. After majoring in journalism, creative writing, and French in college, I took a year to teach English in the French Alps before starting a career in local journalism. I loved being a reporter because I got to learn about the world every single day, and my favorite part was hearing people talk about their passions. But after a few years, especially with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I realized that I was on the fast-track to burnout and that the intensity of my work left no energy for my personal creative pursuits. That’s when I decided to try my hand at freelance writing, and about a year later I landed my first book editing project. I instantly fell in love and signed up for as much training and professional development as I could to help build on the skills I’d gained in my previous career. I’ve been editing from my little home office ever since, and I feel as though I’ve landed in exactly the right place for me.

One of the reasons I’m so passionate about working with authors is that I’ve long struggled with imposter syndrome and self-doubt, and I’ve seen how it can leave you feeling stuck where creativity is concerned. I sometimes call myself a word witch because I believe strongly in the power of ritual and intuition to help us ignite that creative spark, and Gateless Writing was the catalyst that helped me break through my personal blocks and start to see creativity as something that could be playful and expansive. That’s a philosophy that I try to instill in every project I take on and every writing salon I lead. Whether it’s through my workshops, my editing services, or coaching writers one-on-one, the most rewarding aspect is always making creatives feel seen and heard, because that’s what allows us to feel free enough to make some really exciting art.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Taking this career path has required me to unlearn so many things! I think the biggest one is that I was raised to be resourceful and self-sufficient — to be independent and figure things out myself. That has served me well in a lot of aspects of my life, I think, but becoming a creative business owner has also taught me that I don’t always have to do it alone. It can be easy for artists and creative service providers to fall into the trap of self-isolation because so much of our work is very private, and while that can be freeing in some ways, it can also be quite lonely. It was difficult at first for me to get over the hurdle of being afraid to reach out and ask for help or try to make a connection, but once I started building a community, my business grew by leaps and bounds and my creative life began to feel so much fuller and richer. We really are better together, and while my first impulse is sometimes still to deal with a problem on my own, I’m much more comfortable now leaning on my community and providing that same support to other artists and professionals in my creative sphere.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Non-creatives in my life sometimes struggle to understand the unpredictability of owning a creative business and pursuing a creative career. To them, the lack of stability that comes with a traditional job feels too risky or too scary, and I can understand that fear. But while it’s true that I can’t know for sure how much money I’ll make next year or what “leveling up” will look like in the next stage of my professional journey, what I do know for sure is that I feel more fulfilled now — and more like myself — than I ever have when working for someone else. What they see as instability feels to me like a different type of security, because I have faith in my ability to pivot and evolve to meet each new chapter of my life. To me, the freedom and the passion is worth the uncertainty, and I plan to keep making it work for as long as I can. I think there will always be some people in our lives who have a hard time understanding that, but the opinion that matters most is your own.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mcintyreeditorial.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bymegmcintyre/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ByMegMcIntyre
• Twitter: https://x.com/ByMegMcIntyre

Image Credits

Nicki Seefried Photography
Swoyer Photography