Haunted by Ghostwriting: Richard Flanagan

Truly, ghostwriting is a gift. An ability to inhabit another’s voice and speak as if it were your own.

The fact that the little word “ghost” is attached at the front doesn’t change one fact: This is real writing. Difficult writing. Just like any writing.

When it works best (as in Andre Agassi’s memoir written with the help of JR Moehringer), there are no signs of it. The text feels composed by the autobiographer/memoirist alone. When it doesn’t work so well, as in Richard Flanagan’s case (described in his book First Person), it sounds more like a demonic possession.

There are writers whose best gift is to edit others … there are writers whose best gift is to ghostwrite for others … there are writers whose best gift is their own writing.

Flanagan fits into this last category, obviously, but it is interesting with First Person to realize that, in his early days, the creator of Gould’s Book of Fish and The Narrow Road to the Deep North went down the road of ghostwriting because he desperately needed money.

The book isn't a memoir but, according to various media outlets, a fiction with heaping doses of Flanagan's biography in it.

I met Flanagan years ago after the publication of the novel The Unknown Terrorist, and I had no idea about this part of his life.  He came to L.A. for our big annual book event, and we sat in the corner of the author green room and drank beer smuggled in by his amazing publicist.

I wish I'd known.  I would have asked him how you work with non-writers on their books.  That requires a different muscle--something I've learned to exercise for my own manuscript editing business.  More here.

For Flanagan, based on what First Person gives us, it sounds like the experience was an absolute nightmare.  For $10,000, he was asked to help produce the memoir of a man who was a trickster and shape-shifter.  In light of Flanagan's oeuvre, which often tackles larger-than-life characters with dubious ties to the truth, that experience was obviously beneficial.  Formative, probably.

But for a guy who just wants to feed his family and get on with his own work?  I just can't imagine dealing with that.

I admire practitioners of the ghostwriting trade ... and if you're considering that route, I recommend reading one of Flanagan's other books first.  (That makes sense, doesn't it?) You will learn so much if you do.

Onward, my friends.

Surprise!!: Your Draft is a Zero

Hold on a minute. I didn't say the draft was terrible. I just said it was a "zero."

That is totally different ... and useful to understand.

I found this idea in the pages of the late great Peter Drucker, venerable founder of modern management, in his essay "Know Your Time."

That essay is about effective management, especially when it comes to how people manage themselves. At one point Drucker says that managers spend time writing "zero drafts" as part of the writing process ... and that idea is helpful for any writer to understand.

Very often (I am speaking from total experience here) what happens during the writing process is this: You come to the end of a draft, think you're done, and realize you're dissatisfied with the whole thing ... except for a few sentences near the end where things really started to fuse together and get interesting.

Instead of being done with the process, you realize, you're actually getting started. It just took 15,000-20,000 fricken words to get there.

That, my beloved friends, is your zero draft.

It doesn't mean the material is useless or valueless. On the contrary, it has IMMENSE value. It has helped you dump all those expectations and preconceived notions so that you're ready to produce something truly in your voice. (And plenty of that draft material will probably crop up again in your finished draft somewhere anyways-- you'll just use it in a different way).

On the road to finishing my first novel Sorry For The Interruptions, I probably created three zero drafts (maybe more, it's all a blur now). It was a long, painful apprenticeship. But I learned a lot. If you aren't sure if you're working with a zero draft or not, let me know. I can help.

The most important thing, don’t get frustrated or doubt yourself. You're on the right path. The result is going to be amazing ... and worth the extra sweat.

Keep going. You can do it.

Amirite? Has the Digital Age Killed Good Writing?

It doesn't matter if you're posting something only for your friends or advertising your skills to an employer, good writing in the digital age still matters.

Amirite?

(My auto-correct is fighting me on that word.  It keeps telling me that what I really want to say is "emirate.")

BuzzFeed's Emmy Favilla published a book a few years ago that is ... no exaggeration here ... a declaration of war on old grammar rules in the glittering digital age, A World Without 'Whom': The Essential Guide to Language in the BuzzFeed Age.  (Read Tom Rachman's TLS review here.)

I like shorthand speech as much as she does, and I get where she is coming from.  (I don't even mind ending a sentence with a preposition.)  But I can't help rolling my eyes when she says:

"Today everyone is a writer - a bad, unedited, unapologetic writer. There's no hiding our collective incompetence anymore."

It's not that I disagree with her.  I just think we should do a better job of hiding that fact on our personal websites, Facebook posts, other social media platforms, etc.  The world is watching us.  Constantly.  Always.  Once we hit "publish" on a post, our thoughts will continue on -- bad, unedited, unapologetic -- in some weird, cached immortality for as long as the internet exists.

So here's a poetic thought: One day, long after I'm dead and gone, it might be nice for my middle-aged kids to discover some frazzled post I wrote while I was trapped in a midlife crisis.  Maybe it will comfort them.  But I sure don't want any potential employers, readers, and other supporters to find that stuff ... not unless I really want them to.  (Again: I don't mind a dangling preposition now and then.)

That is why we all need to struggle against the easy slide into bad writing online, even though Emmy Favilla does her level best in her book to show us how to embrace it and move on.

Onward, my beloved friends.