Writing: Ghostly Stigma
January 20th, 2010Here’s another short excerpt from one of the e-books in my upcoming program for freelance writers who want to learn to be ghosts, Living as a Ghost:
People don’t want to admit they hire ghostwriters. There is a stigma attached to using a ghostwriter, and we might as well admit it. Why should this be?Whether they can write well or not, people think they should be able to write.
We are funny about writing. We think everyone can write – after all, we learned how in first grade! Reading and writing are a big part of what makes us “civilized.”
One of the correlating lessons that we learned, at the tender age of four or five, was that we must do our own work. Never, ever, copy someone else. We are all capable of learning the skill of writing.
A first grader can write a simple story. A fourth grader can write a book report. By the time you get to high school, you have learned to research and do reports on complex subjects. You have learned grammar and spelling and sentence construction. You have read some great works of Literature. You know what makes a book good.
So now you are an adult and you should be able to write a book of your own. If you have someone else do it for you, this means you are cheating, right?
Well, no …
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