If someone asks me what I do for a living (the requirement of such personal knowledge seems a unique obsession amongst the British people), my answer will, more often than not, elicit a raised eyebrow and accompanying quizzical look.
“A Ghostwriter? What does that mean….?”
“Do you write about ghosts?”
The hilarity.
But that’s all understandable. It’s not the sort of job description that you grow up knowing that, one day, you might become one.
It’s not on any of the lists. Back in the day everyone wanted to be a train driver.
More recently the lust has been for working in IT or the media, else the consistently well established professions such as teaching, law or medicine.
All highly admirable goals and, certainly with regard to those last three industries, options that I never had the élan to even consider.
Working as a writer-and a full time one at that, garret optional but occasional financial penury all but guaranteed-is, of course, a dream for many, young and old.
I’ve lost count of the number of people who have got in touch with me asking, ‘I’d like to be a writer, how do you become one?’.
It’s not an easy question to answer. But I will always take time out to try. And the one thing I will never do is try to put them off their dream, as difficult an industry as it is to enter.
There are, of course, lots of options for any aspiring writer to consider today, such is the scope and scale of the digital world.
You don’t need to have written a book to be a writer any more.
But it’s still the most traditional route into the industry.
Autobiographies, memoirs, life stories; however they are marketed, remain one of the most popular genres in the publishing industry.
The cult of celebrity means that interest in just about every aspect of a well known person’s life is now regarded as public property. Which means that when someone decides to chronicle their life in a book, the interest in reading all about it will be intense.
Spare, the autobiography of Prince Harry has, at the time of writing, sold around 3.2 million copies.
I haven’t read it myself. But if the opportunity to work alongside Harry as his ghost had been presented to me, I’d have been extremely interested in doing so.
But not because of who he is or his status. Fame doesn’t wash with me at all, it means nothing.
A story however, that’s different. I’d do anything to be able to craft someone’s story with them, whoever they are. I’ve been fortunate to do quite a few so far (see My Books) and the pleasure and privilege of doing so never diminishes.
Because when someone asks you to help them record their story, it’s as ultimate an act of trust as you can get.
And the experiences that come with it?
Beyond priceless.
I was working with a client one day, sat at his kitchen table with him in his home, just the two of us, he was talking, I was listening, asking questions and taking notes as usual.
We came to a pivotal period in his life, the untimely and very sad death of his first wife.
He broke down. Full on sobs and choking back the anguish he still felt but doing his absolute best to elucidate his feeling and emotions as he did so.
Did I feel for him? Yes, of course I did.
But we were at work. So I continued to prompt him to continue talking, asking more questions and taking note of everything he was saying.
Thinking what great material it was. Heartfelt, raw, honest and said with feeling. But he trusted me enough to talk about it whilst not being afraid to let his emotions overwhelm him as he did so.
That’s the privilege.
It all comes across very well in the book.
Another client, who lived and worked near Portsmouth during the World War Two told me how, one night, she walked across a railway bridge near her home, glanced towards the southern horizon as she did so and noticed that it was aglow with a fiery orange light from one end to another.
‘That…’, she said, ‘…was Portsmouth burning’.
We sat in silence for a few moments as I watched a great dark shadow pass over her face with that recollection, her eyes and mind as far away as the time of the memory.
It passed. And her expression changed again. Did I want a drink, was the sun past the yard arm?
All smiles.
A privilege, again, to share that moment and memory with her.
Working as a ghostwriter is an art because there is art involved with the work, not the art that you see hanging on walls, but the art of life.
It’s sacred, precious.
So to be able to share those moments and, in time, to pass them onto the world?
Well, here’s that word again.
It’s a privilege.
