The rumor about Mozart is that he could simply sit down and write perfect music without ever having to amend, change, fix, tweak, or rewrite. Music so beautiful it sounded like the angels wrote it flowed out of his leaky fountain pen, his fingers propelled by God.

I don’t know if I really believe these rumors about Mozart. I would bet a lot of money that he rewrote and edited, just like everyone else. But even if it is true of Mozart – I am not Mozart. Nor is anyone else I know. As I write, I know that I will think of ways to make my writing more compelling, that I’ll go back and streamline, chop, highlight, fix sloppy or inexact wording, you name it. I will have to edit.

When I write for myself, I don’t let anyone else read my “stuff” until I’ve done some self-editing. But one of the challenges of ghostwriting is that I have to share interim rough drafts with my clients, so they know how things are progressing. And because my clients are not professional writers, they often have a totally unrealistic idea of what a professional writer does.

People who aren’t professional writers may think that professional writers are Mozarts. They think we can make magic words zip right off our fingers, without having to revise, edit, revise, edit, revise . . .

But actually this is the exact opposite of what does happen. Professional writers know that the first (or the second or third) version will not be the final one. The revisions and edits are what makes them a professional.

Just a reminder, in case one of my clients is reading this . . . I am not Mozart.

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Another excerpt from my new program Living as a Ghost.

I like doing interviews for books I’m ghostwriting because some people say such surprising things – especially if you tell them to be a blabbermouth and to just say anything that pops into their heads. I tell my clients not to worry about wasting my time. Interviews can go off in unforeseen directions, and some of the most colorful passages in books come from off-the cuff remarks or the spontaneous “oh that reminds me of a story…”

Nevertheless, I can’t just ask general, open-ended questions like “What was that like?” or “Describe your grandmother.” Because most people are not blabbermouths and they sometimes suffer from brain freeze. Then I will usually get answers like “It was nice,” or “She was sweet.”

I must ask specific questions designed to elicit details. For instance, if I’m writing a memoir, I don’t ask the question “What were you doing in 1985?” (Could you answer that question?) Let’s say my client is from Florida. I might ask him this question instead – “Do you remember the Florida citrus crop failure in 1985?” Even if he doesn’t remember the citrus crop disaster, he might have something to share about food prices in his lifetime, crop distribution or the grocery-store system in America, or even draw a comparison with what’s happening with food prices today. Or it might bring up marginally related memories, such as Anita Bryant, who was the Florida OJ spokesperson at the time, and her militant anti-gay crusade. In other words I might get other stories.

When you ask specific questions, you will get specific answers. Details are what make a book come alive.

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Another excerpt from one of the e-books in my new program Living as a Ghost.

The very first book I wrote as someone else was for my own grandmother. I wrote the story of when she came to America as a child in 1905, her experiences as a “flapper” in the 1920s, her housewife life in a mountain logging town during the Depression, and her war service in the Second World War. I interviewed her and recorded our conversations, and she lent me a box of very old letters in spidery handwriting, plus about thirty photo albums full of photos of people who even she couldn’t remember. I wrote it in first person, in her voice, using many of the phrases characteristic of my grandmother, with idioms common for her era. I wrote the book for love of my grandmother and because I wanted my own two daughters to know their heritage.

The book turned out very well, and Grandma loved it. She was so proud of it she showed it to all her friends, and since she was a highly social woman, a lot of people got to see it. One of those people raved about the book to her daughter, and then the daughter called me up and asked me to do the same thing for her mother. That was my first paid ghostwriting job. I charged a miniscule amount considering the energy and time I spent on it, but it was a great learning experience to write a memoir for a total stranger. It too was a success, and for the first time it occurred to me that I might actually be able to make a living doing what I loved – writing – and had been doing “on the side” for the previous twenty-odd years.

So I was off and running … well, not really running. I was off and limping. I had a lot to learn yet about ghostwriting, especially about how to market my services. But that was almost 15 years ago, and here I still am.

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Here’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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I’ve been working on a new program for freelance writers who want to learn about ghostwriting. It is called Living as a Ghost and I’ll be premiering it early next month. I am excited! It contains a number of e-books, plus audios, interactive practice sessions, and more. Here is a short excerpt from one of the e-books, about why people might want to hire a ghostwriter.

So if someone wants to write a book, why don’t they just write it? Why do they need you, the ghostwriter?

Of course, the answer is that not everyone who wants to write a book does need you. They might be able to write their book themselves, thank you very much. But it’s equally true that there are many people who’d love to be an author, but don’t think they can be, because of three main reasons:

1. They’re not a writer, or they lack confidence in their writing skills.
2. They hate to write – some would rather clean the bathroom than write.
3. They don’t have the time.

These are not empty excuses. Writing a book is hard. It does take time. Writing talent and skill do help a great deal. That is exactly why authors are given respect.

Yet just because someone is not a writer or doesn’t have time to write, doesn’t mean that their ideas, methods, systems, tips or tricks, or stories don’t deserve to be written down in a book.

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Take a day off and do no writing at all. Don’t even turn on your computer. Forget you are a writer. Pretend you are a plumber, or an accountant, or a scuba diver. Go for a walk. Call your brother and give him some advice. Go shopping and buy something you never thought you’d wear. Go swimming at the YMCA to exercise more of your body than just your fingers. Take a bubble bath. Sing folk songs at the top of your lungs. (You can sing in the bath if you want.)

It doesn’t matter what you do today as long as you don’t write anything. Not even a check or a shopping list. Pretend the keyboard, the pens, and the pencils have been sprayed with vile chemicals that will make all your hair fall out immediately.

Do this exercise once a month. Eventually you will become sane again.

I sometimes share writing tips that have worked for me or my clients/students. Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share? If so, leave a comment here. You might win something! At the end of each month I’ll gather up the “Writing Tip” comments from the month and pick one at random from a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of How to WOW Your Readers or You Can Be An Author, Even If you’re Not a Writer.

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Here’s a short tip: try talking your thoughts instead of writing them. Tell a story, or muse and ponder, out loud – and record yourself doing so. Then play it back. What metaphors and idioms do you use? Do you have an accent? Pay attention to the cadence of your speech, the rhythm of your words. Do you write true to your own voice?

Transcribe the recording verbatim, and then edit the transcription, removing the ums and ers and sidetracks, but preserving the rhythm and your voice. Who knows, maybe you will learn something new about yourself.

I sometimes share writing tips that have worked for me or my clients/students. Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share? If so, leave a comment here. You might win something! At the end of each month I’ll gather up the “Writing Tip” comments from the month and pick one at random from a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of How to WOW Your Readers or You Can Be An Author, Even If You’re Not a Writer.

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As a ghostwriter and editor, the most common problem I run into with my clients is that people want to tell too much. They know a whole lot about their subject and they want to put it all in one book. What a bad idea.

When particularly frustrated with a manuscript I’m editing, I often wish for a bright scarlet stamp that says “OFF TOPIC!” in Big Block Print that I can slam all over the text. Pow! Pow! Pow! (Yes, I know I could do this on the computer, but I can’t Slam and Pow through the computer, so where’s the satisfaction in that?)

Focus! That’s my tip for today. Just that. Focus!

I once had a client who I met at a book fair where I had a table. He came up to me and said, “Oh, I want to write a book – I need to talk to you.” I said, “Great – what do you want to write a book about?” And he goes, “I don’t know.”

Now there was a challenge. He just felt that he had a book inside him somewhere, but he’d never written anything, or really thought much about what he wanted in his book, until that moment. And he actually hired me to find out if he had one – I charged him a consulting fee to spend some hours talking about why he wanted to write a book, what his passions were, who he wanted to reach, and so on, and I recorded the conversations. And you know what? Eventually a focus for the book did emerge, and he then hired me to ghostwrite it for him.

The book was about psychic hunches and how to follow them through.

I sometimes share writing tips that have worked for me or my clients/students. Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share? If so, leave a comment here. You might win something! At the end of each month I’ll gather up the “Writing Tip” comments from the month and pick one at random from a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of How to WOW Your Readers or You Can Be An Author, Even If You’re Not a Writer.

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If you’re a writer, or any kind of artist, there’s a good chance that you operate on a different schedule that most of the other folks in your life. I found a great essay by Paul Graham (www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html ) that explains the difference between the “manager’s schedule” and the “maker’s schedule.” Most people are on the manager’s schedule, but writers and such are often on the maker’s schedule. Managers’ schedules work on short increments of time – one hour, two hours, etc. Makers’ schedules work on much larger blocks of time – a day, a week, even a month. When you try to make a maker carve up their days into hourly blocks, they become totally unproductive.

Graham doesn’t offer a way to turn a maker into a manager, or vice-versa, but he did get rid of my guilt over why I let a one-hour appointment or meeting turn my whole day into a useless mess. I’m a maker, that’s why!

Anytime I can rid my psyche of a blob of guilt, I’m all for it. If you’re a writer, maybe you suffer from this particular kind of guilt too. I recommend you read this article.

I sometimes share writing tips that have worked for me or my clients/students. Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share? If so, leave a comment here. You might win something! At the end of each month I’ll gather up the “Writing Tip” comments from the month and pick one at random from a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of How to WOW Your Readers or You Can Be An Author, Even If You’re Not a Writer.

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Here’s an exercise in using adjectives that is harder than it looks. Pick something to describe, such as the room you are sitting in right now. Your readers should be able to feel as though they too are in the room, seeing it in detail, hearing the sounds, smelling the smells, touching the objects. Here’s the hard part: You can only use adjectives that cannot be disputed. This means you can’t use any adjectives that imply opinion or judgment, such as pretty, or dirty, or ordinary. You can use adjectives that are objectively true – such as “He is wearing a leather belt.” or “The white walls slant toward me.” or “The starling is making a blawk blawk sound from her nest in the eaves.” Better still is to use no adjectives at all, such as: “The air smells like leftovers.”

I sometimes share writing tips that have worked for me or my clients/students. Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share? If so, leave a comment here. You might win something! At the end of each month I’ll gather up the “Writing Tip” comments from the month and pick one at random from a drawing, and send the winner of the drawing one of my e-books: your choice of How to WOW Your Readers or You Can Be An Author, Even If You’re Not a Writer.

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