Taking out the rubbish bags

My wife is helping a friend declutter her office today. This morning I was being helpful, insomuch as I was held incommunicado but within hailing distance ready to be called upon to advise on technical matters. These amounted to, “What’s this cable for?” “Is this software out of date?” and, “Could you take these full rubbish bags downstairs now please?”

Understanding that any of my suggestions on the really serious stuff would probably be vetoed, and forced into voluntary exile with the papers and coffee, I got to thinking about clutter and the written word.

Ghost writing sometimes involves taking someone’s precious words and re-crafting them. This is when serious culling is performed, more often than not as a result of zealous overwriting. In some cases, too many words are used when few will suffice, superlatives are done to death, adjectives are empty and hollow, and concepts meander around biting their own bums.

My way of helping

When Twitter evolved, the 140 character limit was either going to hone users’ writing skills, or severely limit their ability to communicate effectively. Sadly, the result is little of the former and much of the latter. Agreed, it’s difficult to write concisely, however most people fail even to make the effort.

One of the most diabolical Twitter users, and one of the few that I always read, is John Birmingham, writer, journo, and complete idiot. He is extremely funny, highly intelligent, and pulls no punches. Birmingham uses Twitter’s limited word form to communicate exactly how he feels in the moment, no matter how preposterous that moment may be.

Mr Birmingham may have the rare skill of being able to edit his words on the fly, but most of us, mere mortals, have extreme difficulty viewing our own work with clinical objectivity. I have to admit that I’ve been reduced to near tears, well, panic attacks and near death experiences anyway, at the editing of certain clever though irrelevant sentences from my work.

We’re so precious about what we have written, even when we readily admit that we need editing. Perhaps ghost writers are akin to surgeons. Instead of being tortuously led by the nose by an editor through reconstructions, and suffering word loss grief, the client can opt for voluntary anaesthesia, in whatever form, while the ghost takes the work into the operating room and cuts the crap out of it.

The editing process

I have an editor. I’m not telling you who that is, but be assured that I am so fearful of her green pen that I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure my words are the best I can produce before she sees them.

Talking of ghosts, it’s eerily quiet in that office. I wonder how the ladies are doing.

Please, please, change to red

I will be forever grateful to the Brisbane City Council and the Department of Main Roads for their unswerving ability to coordinate the flow of vehicles from one set of traffic lights to another on weekends.

It’s marvellous. Instead of driving in one, boring, uninterrupted, time-saving stream, we take off from the line, drive at the speed limit, and then come to halt at the next set. The timing is exquisite, with the lights inevitably turning to red just as we approach, and teasing us with a will they, won’t they sense of anticipation.

“You’re out of your tiny little mind,” you say.

Hey, slow down here. I’m a writer, so a tiny little mind may well be my prerogative. However, think of what we wordsmiths do, well, some of us. We write about people. And to write about people we need to observe them.

On a weekday, when traffic flow is organised, this is infinitely more difficult. Unless I’m stuck in a traffic jam (something that never happens in Brisbane), the time allotted to  waiting for lights to change is usually taken up with a desperate fiddle with the CD player, texting a few people, making a call, checking my email, feeding the baby, ogling the pedestrians, and applying my makeup.

Weekends are wonderful. They are far more relaxed. I can sit in air-conditioned comfort and watch people, not caring a hoot how late the misphased lights are making me.

Little dramas might be played out in neighbouring cars as we shuffle along the road. Love blossoms and relationships falter, noses are picked, spots are squeezed, and kisses exchanged. Encapsulated and insulated in our bubbles of metal and plastic, we sometimes forget there are greedy eyed voyeurs about.

Who is watching you?

Even the rev heads deserve a look. Sitting rigid, eyes bulging and jaws tense, they wait, almost insane with eagerness, to screech off down the road as the lights turn to green. We’ll soon see them again because the phalanx of trundling conveyances form a tight knit community that has nowhere else to go but to the next set of lights.

I’m quite sure that the Brisbane Metropolitan Transport Centre will now have me squarely on their CCTV screens and flick the lights to green as I approach, thoroughly spoiling my weekend fun.

Oh, and that junk about stuffing around at the lights. I jest, of course. I don’t wear makeup.

Meeting a ghost

“So, what sort of ghosts do you write about?”

Strangely enough, that’s a fairly common question in social situations when I tell people that I’m a ghost writer by profession.

Of course my explanation has to be carefully crafted. No matter how enthusiastic I may feel about my current, future or past projects, I must defend my clients’ confidentiality at all costs. And that is the nature of my business – an enduring secret. I am but a ghost, who floats into people’s lives, shares their hopes and dreams, listens to their innermost thoughts, and writes in their voices.

As a ghost, I’m not always on the book launch guest list, although, from time to time, it does happen. And what a joy, and an honour, to be quietly in the background as a client begins their speech, “I wrote this book because …” Well, by the time you’ve gone through a ghost writing process, in a sense, you have written it.

I heard recently that over 70% of non-fiction is now ghost written. That didn’t surprise me. It takes an enormous amount of time, discipline, and sheer bloody-minded dedication to write a book. At best, juggling between work, family and other commitments, an author must pledge at least a year and every moment of their spare or stolen time to reach the first draft stage.

Ghostwriter at a book launch

“Any best-sellers?” is the next inevitable question.

“Hmm, quite a few,” I reply. “Though no-one will ever know.”

“Doesn’t it piss you off? You know, writing something that sells millions and not getting any money for it?”

The fact is I’ve been paid for my work. And very well. Any galloping success of a book I’ve ghost written is pure, unadulterated pleasure for me. And something else: those long, arduous book tours, TV and radio gigs (some are very early in the morning), interviews with print journalists, photo shoots, worrisome scanning of best-seller lists – ah, not for me. When a client appears on TV, I’m sitting in my favourite café with a long black and a few notes on a new book, and, yes, feeling just a teensy bit proud.

Cheers!

Fishing for information

On the phone I listen to a plaintive plea from a good friend, ‘How much will I charge?’ and understand exactly how my caller is feeling. Sally has someone interested in her writing skills and has come to the dilemma all writers-for-hire must face at some time in their careers – what to charge.

Does Sally, knowing that her potential client is likely to be shopping around, try to get a feel for the going rate and pitch somewhere in that vicinity? Or does she aim a tad under, or over or … bloody hell, what does she do?

I recently conducted a fishing expedition. I’d heard on a number of occasions that overseas writers who advertise their wares online were charging some extremely low rates. How low is low, I wanted to know? And what services were they offering? Well the exercise proved to be extremely educational and radically adjusted my perception of the value of our written words.

I joined a couple of organisations and, whilst waiting for a flood of offers, had a long look around. I’m allowed to. I’m a member, and passed lots of tests, you know. Oh, just a small point, as advised by the organisations, I did advertise my hourly rate as well below what I would expect in Australia. And it was disturbing that even this was considerably higher than most other members were asking.

The idea is to bid for jobs, so I started looking at the sort of work I would be into, and then examining the profiles of the bidders AND their rates. This was my first surprise. Many of my fellow writers were well qualified, or so it seemed, and many had been employed plenty of times before. It was quite a revelation to see that these ‘old timers’ had been working for as little as USD$2 per hour. And a few newbies had actually scored some work at as little as USD$1.25 per hour. So what were they doing for that?

The big market is blog content. A typical advertiser wants ‘accurately written and grammatically perfect articles of 400-700 words on a range of subjects’. Not only does the advertiser remind each applicant that the posts will be checked for original work, but the range of subjects include: health (as in medical), alternative health treatments and remedies, real estate, finance, and investment. One advertiser required 200 horoscopes a day and was prepared not only to pay the princely sum of USD$2.75 for the lot, but was happy that someone with ‘only an interest in astrology’ would be suitable for the job. I’ll never check my stars again.

How much are you worth?

To put things in perspective, in some countries USD$2.00 could possibly buy the entire food needs for a family of six for one day. That’s one hell of an incentive for racking out a few tasty horoscopes. In Australia we wouldn’t dream of getting out of bed for that amount, yet enough bucks to swan around the local supermarket and do the day’s groceries? Mmm, now there’s a thought. Maybe I should get out of bed then.

The bottom line for writers who really value their efforts may not be what the market expects to pay. Would you ever have valuable writing done by someone who only wants two bucks an hour no matter how good they may appear to be? Conversely $1,000 per hour may seem a bit steep, but some people are happy to pay that for what they want.

Writers must sit down and work out what they expect to be paid for their work. What they are happy to receive. In other words, what they feel their writing is worth, and what they feel their time is worth.

So Sally, if you don’t get paid what you’re worth, my suggestion is, don’t do it.