Making Harbour

After setting sail the other week, I thought I'd best give an update.

I did what I said I would that week, through gritted-teeth on the Still Life days. It was quite an unsettling experience. I've discovered that I truly enjoy ghostwriting. It's sort of addictive in a way. I've developed this pattern, as I described before, of taking one day to transcribe notes, the next day to write up the chapter. It's led to a steady writing rhythm in which I can easily knock out 3,800-4,500 words in a sitting. And it's good work. The whole memoir is coming together nicely, and it's just a bit painful to think that some of my most enjoyable work won't have my name on it. But that was the deal I knew I signed up for, and I'm really grateful that it's got me writing so fluidly.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for my own work. It's like losing those chapters poisoned the chalice. I managed to write my way back up to 70k, and replace the main bulk of what I lost, but I did so grudgingly. I hoped that once I was back to where I left off, I'd be raring to write the next instalment, but I haven't looked at it since. This sudden detachment surprises me, as I was so into the story just before I lost it.

Once this book's finished for my client, I'll get back to my own stuff. It's just pulled me under in a way I wasn't expecting. I'm deriving a lot of satisfaction from telling somebody else's life story. In parts, it's stranger than fiction. I can't work out if it's specifically because the person is such an interesting subject, or because I'm just enjoying how easy it is to write a book that's already sort of been written... I'd like to do more ghostwriting to find out. It feels a bit more like colouring in than writing a book. The transcripts provide the outline, then you choose which words to make it sparkle. I'm a total pantser with fiction, so that structure is never really there. Perhaps I should try recording my stories and then writing them up in this way. It's nice never having to feel like you're facing down a blank page, because the next part of the story is always waiting for you.

We're at about 27,500 words, 83 pages now. I'm contracted for 100 pages - it's a short book - but I reckon it'll probably come in around the 120 mark. 

I send over my work every three or four chapters, just to show I'm actually working, and to release payment. I know my client is itching to start editing but I've refused to accept any feedback before it's finished, unless I've made any glaring inaccuracies or they don't like the tone. Things that could affect what I go on to write next.

Think it might be finished in the next couple of weeks if I keep going at the same pace.

Setting Sail

Today, I set sail upon a sea of words.

And, like the picture above, it may all go up in smoke.

The start of this year has seen a lot of faffing. March already! Goodness. I thought I'd be so much further along with so many projects.

In a bid to clear my desk, I've given myself a rather punishing schedule this week. I'm thoroughly enjoying ghostwriting a business biography for a client. They've lived an extremely interesting life so it's a pleasure to help put it to paper. 

That's actually going much better than my own work because it's got a lot of structure to it. We did many hours of interviews, so for me it's now a case of reconfiguring what we talked about into neat chapters. I'll spend one day listening to a chunk of the tapes and collating that material into a logical plot progression, then I'll spend the next day padding out those transcribed notes into something that flows. 

The way we narrate stories is rarely a straight chronology. If you listen to anyone talking about things they've done - your grandfather's war stories, your mother's misspent youth - people jump about all over the place. Remembering one thing often causes them to remember something else that is related but happened in another place or time. People often jump to that other thing before coming back to complete what they were talking about in the first place, or drifting off into something else entirely.

For the writer, you need to find all those loose threads and tie them together in neat paragraphs. If someone starts off talking about one thing, jumps to something that happened later in life, then comes back, you need to gather together the beginning and end, and push the middle to the bottom of the page. It's more important for a reader to have the chronology straightened out than for a listener. I think it's down to the ways in which we're used to having information presented to us. We expect to jump around when having a story told to us, whereas we're used to the written narrative following a more considered course.

Anyway, that's coming along nicely at the moment. My client is happy, though wants me to add more humour. We'll fix that in the edit.

My own writing is not progressing in the least. I never recovered from losing those two chapters of Still Life. It irritates me to tears every time I think about it, so I haven't thought about it.

This week I'm fixing that.

I'll never move forward with the novel until I rewrite the missing scenes. So, this week's schedule is:

MONDAY: Ghostwrite one chapter.

TUESDAY: Write one chapter of SL, transcribe notes for next ghost chapter.

WEDNESDAY: Ghostwrite one chapter.

THURSDAY: Write one chapter of SL, transcribe notes for next ghost chapter.

FRIDAY: Ghostwrite one chapter.

SATURDAY: Edit ghostwritten chapters and send to client.
SUNDAY: Drink wine, eat cheese.

It's kind of like knit one, purl one.

By the end of this week I should have three more chapters to send to the client, plus I should have returned to where things were with my own novel and can then continue writing the rest of it.

So, this morning I stare into the gaping space left by my failure to backup, and remind myself never to be so silly again.

Anchors away!

Write Me Up

Oh boy. A new year, a new adventure.

I've just been commissioned to undertake my first full-on ghostwriting gig. Farewell to web content and technical reports, hello memoir.

I start tomorrow, and I must admit I'm bricking it slightly. Due to the nature of ghostwriting, I can't tell you anything about my client or the book itself, but I can tell you all about the process. I've already written about writing a novel before, so let's see how non-fiction compares.

In some respects, it's going to be a lot like writing historical fiction, only it's historical fact. 

My approach is the same as it would be with HF, where I utterly immerse myself in the subject for the first couple of weeks. Only, instead of turning to Wiki, YouTube and academia, I'm turning to a comfortable café and my trusty voice recorder. Thankfully, my subject has led a fascinating life and can talk about it with emotion and eloquence. By the end of our first meeting, I already had my starting point figured out. I have a strong sense of where and how we should begin things, and the path we'll travel.

But that's where the similarity with fiction ends, and where my cold sweats begin.

We're aiming for quite a short book. Something to take on tour at events and speeches. Yet, even a short work can feel long if you don't have the material at your fingertips. 

With fiction, I swim in a pool of research for the first couple of weeks to a month, then I sit down and begin writing, looking up anything I need to know as I go.

You can't do that with a biography, because all of the details are in the other person's head, not on Wikipedia. You can't break your stride for a moment to quickly look something up, you need to e-mail, call or WhatsApp and wait for the reply. So, a lot more rests on the initial interviews and making sure they're detailed enough. Not just recording the things my client wants to talk about, but asking questions they might not have thought of themselves, about colours, smells, feelings, descriptions - those little hidden pebbles that get lost beneath the stream of consciousness. The things that bring a place or an encounter to life on paper.

Physically writing the words doesn't bother me, it's having enough to write about, even with someone who has lived an incredible life. Getting to know that person well enough to write as them, through their eyes, in their voice. 

We've only met twice.

We begin tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., café to be decided.

I guess I'll journal this under the label Ghostwriting.

Wish me luck, and if you've ghostwritten for someone in the past, I'd appreciate any pointers in the comments below.