Ghostwriter

Archive for the ‘About ghosts’ Category

Some words hold water better than others

Have you ever read a novel and stopped somewhere thinking, yeah right? That little something that hasn’t quite held water, jerking you rudely out of the narrative perhaps?

I was reading a story the other day when a synchronous moment it described did just that. It brought me back to reality like a twanging elastic band. I grumbled at what I felt was the author’s too vivid imagination and went off to do some shopping. And that’s where my real life story begins to stretch belief.

I was away from home a great deal longer than I’d anticipated. On the way back, feeling extremely thirsty, I was lamenting that I’d forgotten to bring any water with me, so I pulled into a service station to get fuel, intending to buy some eau en bouteille at the same time.

No luck. The servo’s EFTPOS system had imploded, leaving the shop hamstrung. They were unable to charge for

I was feeling a little thirsty by this time

fuel or goods, so they had switched off the pumps, closed the doors, and put the kettle on.  By this time I was very dry and exceedingly grumpy, asking the guy on the forecourt—only slightly sarcastically—if the EFTPOS being down had affected the air pump too.

I thought that I could at least check the tyre pressures and put some meaning into my visit before collapsing to the concrete with extreme dehydration. With any luck the EFTPOS would remain out-of-order long enough for the paramedics to be called, otherwise my rapidly desiccating body would be bounced around the pumps by a mad rush of vehicles when the place reopened.

The guy’s radiant, toothy smile made me feel instantly guilty and I decided to put a cap on my churlishness right then and there. My resolution was so strong that when I drove over to the air hose and saw it almost completely blocked by a campervan, I shrugged philosophically and took some time to manoeuvre around and squizzle the car as close to the pump as I could.

He was possibly from Austria

I’d just turned the engine off when a young man jumped from the campervan and walked toward me carrying two full two litre bottles of mineral water, another one half-full (please note the use of half-full rather than half-empty here), and a large bottle of fizzy drink.

His accent was probably Austrian.

“So, we are flying to Sydney in two hours and cannot carry this on the plane. Do you like it?”

I took the gifts and thanked him. As I guzzled back some of the water, my mind went back to that small fictional synchronicity I’d been reading. Now, if I included that water-manifesting story in a novel, I bet you wouldn’t believe it. And yet it happened.

Ben Elton

I was reading Ben Elton’s Meltdown the other night when I realised that some of the characters really pissed me off. Well, I didn’t realise it exactly. My wife, prompted by a few too many huffs and puffs, asked me gently if I was alright.

Jane Teresa will often ask me questions. She always has. In fact, from what I understand, she’s had an enquiring mind since she could first speak and, on a number of occasions, drove her mother crazy with queries. I guess that’s what catapulted her into the scientific world and then into her own research into dreams, but that’s another story.

A selfish and grasping character

I was so deeply engrossed in the book that I hadn’t realised that I was making an issue out of Ben’s characters until JT mentioned my obvious discomfort. I suppose discomfort is the word. Some of the people in the story were dickheads and, as the plot progressed, they developed into obnoxious dickheads. It was making me angry.

Of course that was Ben Elton’s idea. For example, the selfish, grasping, bad behaviour portrayed by one of the protagonists was meant to prickle and upset the reader. Unless they too were selfish and grasping in which case the whole point would be lost. But, again, they wouldn’t be reading the book anyway, would they? Too busy out there grabbing.

When I sat back and thought about it, I wondered if I really wanted to read the book at all. I had to make a decision. I was at the point in the narrative where I would shortly be sucked in and would have to finish the book. It’s happened to me too many times before not to be aware of it. What a choice – continue, knowing that I was going to grind my teeth until I was ready to climb inside the pages and give what’s his name a quick slap, or toss the book to one side and pick up another one without all the angst in it from my burgeoning to-read pile?

There's plenty of happiness around

Do we really need to have books upset us? Is avoiding writing that challenges us ducking the realities of life? In my case I know the answer. From time to time my long life has been well drenched in other people’s dramas and sorrows. Conflict and death aren’t strangers to my memories. I’ve pretty much seen it all – very, very good and very bad. I wouldn’t swap my life’s experiences for anything. Well, not a lot anyway and only some things. Why would I choose to immerse myself in a story of bickering and misfortune when there’s so much happiness in the world to enjoy? It just reminds me of the blacker side of real life.

What do you think?

And Ben Elton’s tale? I did finish it. And I did enjoy it.

Russell Crowe as Robin Hood

Can you remember the first grown-up book you read? I went to see Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood the other day. I’d been waiting for the movie with an uncharacteristic and almost overwhelming sense of excitement that reminded me of Christmas Eve as a youngster. My sister and I would be packed off to bed early (diabolically early now I look back on it – no doubt providing my parents a heaven-sent opportunity for some well deserved R & R) to wait, trembling in anticipation, for Santa’s visit.

So why my eagerness over a story that’s been told and retold over the centuries to a point where nobody knows the facts anymore? Criticism has been levelled at Scott for mangling history. But, for goodness sake, Robin Hood is a rollicking yarn and always has been, so why let facts get in the way of a good story? And, as for Russell Crow’s Yorkshire/Geordie/Scottish/Irish accent, Robin must have had a lot of mates, and you know how hanging around folk can sometimes make you talk funny.

Howard Pyle's Robin Hood takes on Little John

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle was the first serious book I read as a child. I remember the tome felt enormous in my small hands. I think it took a year for me to read it, but perhaps I devoured it more than once in that time. I know that I referred to the illustrations countless times as I immersed myself in Sherwood Forest’s leaf-strewn adventures.

Arrows flew with unerring accuracy, covering vast tracts of forest, to shudder dramatically into just the right oak tree and there vibrate with twanging urgency. Fabulous. And what little boy couldn’t visualise Robin’s comically serious encounter with Little John, or shrug resignedly at the required elements of love brought to the story by the fair Lady Marian’s elegant boyishness?

This book must have helped form much of my future preferences for reading. I can still disappear for hours under the influence of an historical novel, as long as there’s a decent role model in it somewhere, someone – who cares whether they’re male or female? – with a major dollop of wickedness to blend with the do-good deeds will usually fit the bill.

He read scientific journals as a little boy.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to discover how much of our early exposure to the written word influences our future tastes? For example, do children who’ve been fed a few dry tomes gravitate down certain academic paths and then onto related careers? No doubt someone has a heap of data that could give us some invaluable insights into the correlation between what little minds sponge up and their chosen professions.

Now, sadly, I must put away my quiver, sheathe my broadsword, and leave off saving England and any spare fair maidens for another day. But, before you go, pop a comment. What was the first book that really turned you on?

Sarajevo's weapon of choice

I was having a chat at a good friend’s place the other day when he offered me a cup of coffee. I declined, having already driven caffeine into my system with a powerful long black in one of my city haunts earlier that morning. “No,” he said, wagging his finger and shaking his head in a persuasive Latin manner. And that’s all he had to say.

I stopped talking. That beautifully expressed word, no, had been emphasised with a curling of the lips, and a severe drawing together of the eyebrows. One little word accompanied by a deliciously inherent body language instantly delivered passion and confidence. And it was so utterly persuasive that I’d made up my mind, or should I say my mind was made up for me, that I’d have his cup of coffee no matter what.

That what turned out to be a new experience. My friend proceeded to perform a well practised ritual with a small, long handled, heavy copper pan. Filling it with water and bringing it to the boil, he heaped spoonful after spoonful of richly aromatic, freshly ground coffee into the pan as my taste buds quivered in anticipation. The water turned into an almost black sludge which, after being allowed to settle momentarily, was poured into cups.

He won't know what hit him

I peered into the thick, murky gunk. It smelt incredibly strong. Waiting for it to cool, I gestured at the unusual pan.

“It comes from Sarajevo,” my friend said. “Every house would have one, for making coffee and beating the husband over the head when he came home late and drunk.”

I quickly glanced at him. His face, half buried in his cup, displayed no irony and not the slightest trace of humour. Knowing him reasonably well, I continued to stare until he looked up and I could see the mirth in his eyes. I thought of making a comment, punning on his dead-pan delivery, but the moment passed.

The coffee? It was probably one of the strongest coffees I’d ever experienced, and I resolved, wide-eyed and still very awake at 3am the following morning, not to make it my second brew of the day ever again. And the pan? I felt its weight and substance and can confirm that it would make a formidable domestic weapon, and that the men of Sarajevo would be well advised to be home in time for dinner, and reasonably sober to boot. At such times actions speak louder than words.

Table legs on the menu

I was doing a downward facing dog the other night when I noticed something extraordinary. A tiny sign on the side of a timber table leg proclaimed that this product should not be eaten.

Now, first the downward dog bit. If you’re unfamiliar with yoga, don’t let your imagination and sexually oriented fantasies run too wild. A downward facing dog (adho mukha svanasana) is one of the most recognised yoga poses and an integral part of the wonderful salute to the sun sequence. And how do I know that?

Many years ago I suffered chronic debilitating backache. I would go to the gym for some treadmill work, or a little aerobics if my spine could take it. I would often see the yoga class devotees, seemingly lying around on their cute little mats doing nothing too strenuous. Indeed, most of the time they seemed to be having a nice little kip.

They walked out looking so serene

But something wasn’t quite right. For all the lying around these yogis appeared to be in very good physical shape. That puzzled me. And then the expressions of serenity and the faraway, contented looks in their eyes as they filed out of the class began to bug me.

So that’s when I started yoga? No, but I really wish I had. I continued to pay hundreds of dollars to a chiropractor for fortnightly relief, kneeled to make the bed because I couldn’t bend without excruciating pain, had to sit down to take my jeans, pants, socks, and whatever off, and whinged constantly about either how much my back hurt, or how many painkillers I had to take. The nearest I got to yogic bliss was the euphoria of mixing codeine, Panadol, and single malt scotch, but they were my drinking days after all.

A pain in the back

Eventually, or should I say soon after Jane Teresa and I got together, I trundled reluctantly along to a yoga class. It was a cold night for Brisbane, so we were well rugged up, starting the session with fleeces and jumpers on. I was a little cranky. I was in the middle of a job and would have preferred to be sitting in front of my PC with a glass of red.

Within minutes I was stripped to T-shirt and shorts, the perspiration dribbling into my eyes as I viewed the world from the peculiar perspective of the downward facing dog position. It was dreadful and became considerably worse. Every fibre of my body was quivering with strain as I panted and puffed my way through the warm up. And I was yet to meet the warrior, the plank, and the three-legged dog.

Leaving that first class, I can’t say I exuded the same tranquillity and peace my fellow yogis were enjoying. I looked more like a stunned mullet, and I must have passed out during the savasana (the nice resty bit at the end) because JT had to come and wake me up.

One-legged underpants dance

It only took a few more classes before yoga became an indispensable part of my life. High stress levels became a thing of the past, my back improved out of sight, and although I would not go so far as to say I’m exactly super flexible, I can bend it with the best of them when it comes to the one-legged underpants dance.

But what about that sign? Who would put such an important warning in a place that could only be read by a downward facing dog? And who on earth would contemplate munching on a wooden table leg?

Inadvertently listening to a conversation

I was listening to a loud conversation the other day. I hesitate to say that it was in a café because a number of people have commented recently that rather nice cafés seem to be where I spend most of my time, and have asked if I ever actually write.

When you’re a sociable sort of bloke who enjoys the buzz of a busy inner city java-joint, writing for endless hours alone often calls for a contrasting environment to refresh and revitalise the brain. An hour’s break to contemplate humanity, or interact socially, soon fires up the neurons for another session at the keyboard. It’s simply a matter of balance.

But let’s get back to that conversation. A rather smartly dressed young man was complaining to his comrades that he’d spent hours crafting an email to a web development company, explaining to them exactly why he was unhappy with their service.

Choose your words carefully

“I wanted them to get the message in one email, so I chose my words carefully,” he said. “I covered every aspect of the problem in detail, and I even had my girlfriend read it so that I got it right. And then I get an email back from them full of advice and proposals, but none of it had anything to do with my issue. It’s as if they never even read the email I sent!”

That certainly struck a chord with me. In fact, much the same happened with one of my emails a couple of years ago. Fortunately I knew the addressee rather well, and was able to sit down and have a heart-to-heart to find out what went wrong.

“It’s too much,” he told me. “Every day I get emails that I don’t have time to read, never mind fully absorb. I end up just scanning through them to get the gist and hope I get it right.”

“And if you don’t …?”

He shrugged miserably. I lose customers, get stressed, and end up speed reading even faster because I feel panicked.”

That’s an extreme example of a very common phenomenon. We simply don’t make the time to read properly. Add the fact that the material we’re reading is often poorly written and it’s no wonder we’re confused and end up wasting more time unravelling meaning and getting even more stressed.

Excuse me, sire, did you actually read it?

Combine bad writing with hasty reading and things can get nasty. There’s an urban myth about a letter sent to an emissary in a volatile nation that was read as a direct insult. The unintended affront was caused by the smeared remains of a tiny insect on the paper creating a phantom comma in the wrong place in the opening sentence. If the letter’s recipient had read the entire missive properly he would have understood the error, instead of commencing retaliatory hostilities and dispensing with a few lives.

Ghost writing is often about disentangling a few obscure ideas mixed with random thoughts, and that’s one of the great challenges of the job. However, if I’m in doubt, it saves a lot of everyone’s time if I just ask the client what they mean, instead of making assumptions. Well, we wouldn’t want to start a war, would we?

Being critiqued is so much fun

Many years ago, I gave my then friend, Jane Teresa, a swag of articles I’d written. I felt an enormous sense of pride as I handed them over. After all, JT, was a published author, and she was interested in my work – a rare combination. Actually, truth to tell, I was almost wetting myself in anticipation of the bit of praise I knew would be coming my way.

Little did I know that I was about to experience something every writer should. And that experience was going to be excruciatingly painful, emotionally disturbing, and completely heartbreaking. I could have easily given up the pen (and the friendship – no, I lie about that) right then, and if it were not for JT’s encouraging words that accompanied the awful ripping as she dissected my work, I would never have written again.

Fortunately, I continued to write and, not only did

Excuse me, you wouldn't have a spare stake on you, would you?

Jane and I marry, but we also formed an extraordinary team for many adventures. I learned loads of lessons from those early critiques, but, more importantly, what was driven home like a stake through a vampire’s heart, was an indelible memory of pain and wounded pride that will endure forever. Isn’t that great?

From time to time, ghostwriting is not so much about finding new words, but resurrecting the old. For example, clients who present their tenderly crafted words for appraisal have the reasonable perception that the work may, at the most, just require a bit of a polish. And sometimes that’s all it does need. However, if the ghost is faced with a bit of a dog’s dinner, it would be as well for him to remember how those razor edges of rejection felt to oneself before ploughing ahead with a critique of another’s efforts.

Bit of a dogs' dinner

Not long ago, I had a lovely lady client. She was elderly, poised, almost stately, and the epitome of good manners. As we progressed, she happily accepted my total rewriting of her book with the same emailed response, ‘reads well’. After a dozen or so of these I began to wonder if she was actually reading what I’d sent. I mean, some of the changes I’d made were quite dramatic. And then, halfway through the book, I had an email from her with a piece of text I’d edited out pasted into the message. It was accompanied by large red font which said, ‘Michael, I really fucking like this. Please leave it in’.

Yes, I was as shocked as you no doubt are. But, after I’d laughed out loud, I had a think. Had I become careless, or thoughtless? Immersed in my writer’s zone, and on a roll, had I lost some sensitivity to my client’s precious words? I’ll probably never know, but as a sharp reminder, the message served its purpose.

The ghostly cafe

Getting a ghost writer in front of a public microphone is as difficult as persuading a photographer to appear at the sharp end of a camera.

“But there are questions to be answered,” my lovely wife, Jane Teresa, insisted. “All I have to do is press this button while we’re having coffee.”

And that’s how it happened. Many of the questions I’m asked at social events and professional meetings are answered here. Of course, there are many more, and what better way of answering them than over first-class long blacks in one of Brisbane’s great cafés.

So, yes, we’ll do it again for sure. And, in the short wait to my next long black, please drop me a line if you have any queries about ghost writing. I’d love to hear from you and, apart from making my coffee tryst with my wife tax deductible, you would be helping folk out there understand what I do, and how I do it.

Have a listen!


Gail Jones - Dreams of Speaking

In her novel Dreams of Speaking (2005 Age Book of the Year Award), Gail Jones introduces us to Mr Sakamoto, a Japanese survivor of Hiroshima. Intelligent and urbane, he’s also an expert on Alexander Graham Bell, the pioneering engineer credited with inventing the telephone.

Mr Sakamoto’s fascination with Bell began with his own personal experiences of the phone and, from the narrative, it’s clear that the deeply personal interactions that Sakamoto enjoyed over the wires actually kept him sane during some of the darker moments of his life.

Without giving away what is a wonderful story, Ms Jones engages the reader with aspects of that priceless medium of human contact, the voice. But, in this case, it’s not the voice heard face-to-face that fascinates. It’s the voice on the other end of the phone. When whispered, murmured, and sighed, Mr Sakamoto suggests that words on the phone take on subtle nuances and inflections of shared confidentialities that wouldn’t occur face-to-face.

There's meaning in the voice

Today, satellites and fibre optics are replacing copper cable, and mobiles and VoIP are replacing the traditional dial phone. What remains, however, is the physical separation of conversationalists, a void waiting to be filled by the vibrating elements of speech and the rich and personal timbres of the voice.

I find face-to-face and phone discussions each have their own merits. But the phone does dispense with many of the constraints we must observe in a physical encounter, particularly between strangers. There is no body language to distract from the way something is said, no background noises to blur or conceal a nuance, no social behaviours or appearances to misjudge, and every reason to deeply engage one’s senses in an effort to fully comprehend the message in the voice.

Sometimes my work involves encouraging a client to think through an experience, to relive it, and ride a few bumps in the process. In those extremely sensitive moments, the phone is a tangible thing to hang onto. And not so much as a grip of abject terror, but more of a support as the emotions flow and ebb with the memories.

You can hear the client's thought processes

On the phone, comfortable, respectful, or reflective silences become part of a deeper conversation. One can almost hear the client’s thought processes, and it feels perfectly natural and unobtrusive to respond with ah, or hmm, just to let them know I’m there. Even the hum from the ether seems perfectly in tune with the moment.

Are you getting that weird feeling?

Do you ever get a weird feeling somewhere around the pit of your stomach? I’m talking about something that ranges between an imperceptible tingle and a full-on lurch depending on what triggers it. I’ve heard it referred to as a feeling of dread, a nervous twinge, abject fear, a premonition, or plain old shitting oneself.

Looking in the rear view mirror in the middle of a totally absorbing conversation and seeing a cop car with its light flashing will always do it for me. There’s usually one clear expletive that will ensue from such a vision, and it ain’t oh, darn.

Last week I had my own intestine chilling experience when I posted a profound question in Twitter (I realise Twitter and profundity is a contradiction) that I’d contemplated for half an hour. As I hit enter I realised my question was sans question mark. How stupid, I thought. I’m supposed to be a writer. My next thought came quite logically (and practically), As if anyone would notice. But, yes, they did. And did I go through their tweets to check their grammar? I mean, would I?

Barking up the wrong tree

The question of how long to spend editing can be a thorny one for a ghostwriter. Some published works have been known to take anything between one to ten years to complete, with some tomes enduring hundreds of editing sweeps during the writing process, and authors agonising for months over a single sentence.

Time is money to a ghostwriter, and because it’s the client’s money we’re talking about here, any unduly protracted work has to be avoided. Barking up the wrong tree is sometimes part of the writing process, particularly when research is involved. But knowing when to stop sniffing around that particular piece of flora and head off in a more appropriate direction comes only with experience.

Ghostwriters have to be prepared to lose words, and sometimes unexpectedly. For example, in the middle of a project a client approved 10,000 words I’d written for her. It was a part of the book that dealt with a truly terrible time in her life. Having never verbalised the experiences before, she had found the interview, however informal I tried to make it, a fairly rough ride.

The tears released her

A week later she called again to say thanks and to inform me that she’d read the material over and over and had wept buckets. Now, for the first time in her life, she felt she could forgive and move on. She added that the words had brought about a healing that she had never imagined possible, and rather than include them in the book where they would be likely to reopen old wounds for the people involved, she preferred to see them excised forever.

Sometimes to have a win-win, you have to aim for lose-lose.

And, talking of losing, how much is that traffic fine again?