Every now and then I’m asked about the various resources I use when I’m working on ghostwriting a book. These things change occasionally, so I thought it would be a good idea to share what I am using as my main book writing tools in 2021. So here they are: from recording interviews to organising to drafting to (almost) collaborating.
Being willing to reveal a bit of yourself, especially through a bit of self-effacing humour, will lighten your text and give your readers something to connect to.
But this blog post is not about that sort of vulnerability.
No, this time I want to remind you of two of the less inspiring but just-as-important vulnerabilities every writer faces. Those vulnerabilities are backup and data security.
I was reminded recently about this by a rare computer crash that led to me losing a small amount of work. It wasn’t important and was easily recovered, but it could have been so much worse. Imagine losing a whole book to a hard drive crash!
If there’s one thing you learn from spending a chunk of your career in the world of books and writing, it’s that there are a lot of great stories out there. Personal stories of remarkable success against the odds. Business stories of risk taking and growth. Political stories of intrigue and persistence.
It would be great if all these stories could be told. As Spanish philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. Ideally, the stories would be recorded in books because books last. They go onto shelves and into libraries. They won’t disappear or become unreadable with new technologies.
Unfortunately, many terrific stories are never written down. Sometimes that’s because their owners don’t want to share them. Often
Ghostwriter characters don't make it into fiction very often, but when they do they always seem to find themselves in jeopardy.
In the 2010 Roman Polanski film The Ghost Writer, Ewan McGregor plays a ghostwriter working for a former British prime minister. In the end he knows too much and ... it doesn't end well.
In the Netflix series House of Cards, Paul Sparks plays ghostwriter Thomas Yates who, after struggling to extract a decent memoir out of the president, fails to keep his professional distance, you might say. It takes a while – three seasons in fact – but it doesn't end well for him either.
And now we have Australian writer Richard Flanagan's latest novel, First Person, in which the narrator is a ghostwriter hired to author the memoir of a notorious conman. The story was inspired by Flanagan's own experience, very early in his career, of ghostwriting the autobiography of fraudster John Friedrich in 1991.
I love that my work as a ghostwriter gives me the opportunity to help people get their stories told. What I love even more is the fact that working on other people's stories gives me a front-row seat to those yarns.
Take Around the Grounds, for instance – a book that will be released by Finch Publishing on August 1.
For this book I've been working with former ABC radio broadcaster Peter Newlinds. Peter's story is a celebration of sport, but from the spectator's side of the fence. This perspective gives the story a level of accessibility that most sporting memoirs, written as they are by former players, can't have. Few of us have the ability to play elite sport, but all of us are more than capable of joining in from the relative safety of the stands.
Of course we don't all have access to the commentary box as Peter did…
Every now and then I’m asked about the various resources I use when I’m working on ghostwriting a book. These things change occasionally, so I thought it would be a good idea to share what I am using as my main book writing tools in 2021. So here they are: from recording interviews to organising to drafting to (almost) collaborating.
I've recently started working on a new company history project. I've conducted interviews with about 20 people and had those interviews transcribed. I've also been provided with a number of newspaper articles and other items from the archives. All up I have about 200,000 words of raw material that needs to be condensed down to about one tenth of that for the final book.
At the moment I don't have a clear idea of what the finished product is going to look like structurally. I have some major headings in mind, but what order they will be presented in is unknown. And those topics may change too. There might be a few 'ins' and 'outs' along the way.
But that's okay. What I've learnt over the years is that uncertainty at this stage of a book project, or any large creative project for that matter, is quite normal.
I was a bit misty eyed during the week after reading of the death of Hermann Zapf. Zapf was a typographer and font designer. He gave us the widely used Palatino typeface, Optima (one of my favourite fonts) and the Zapf Dingbats (you’ve probably used some of them), amongst others.
To be honest I hadn’t heard of Zapf before. What made me go all nostalgic was the thought of what this 96-year-old had seen over his life and that he will continue to make his mark, via his fonts, for many years to come.
I’ve always loved a good font. However, as a writer I’m also aware of the potential dangers of being a ‘fontoholic’. Believe me, there are a lot of fonts out there if you go looking for them.
Here are the five strategies I use in order to manage this condition.
Some years ago I stumbled upon a piece of software designed to help writers of books to, well, get the job done. That application is now central to everything I do as a writer and ghostwriter: books, blogs, articles and speeches. I cannot imagine being able to do what I do without it.
Sound like a big rap? I can confidently say that Scrivener, the software in question, deserves it.
Scrivener is difficult to describe until you’ve used it. A good way to think of it is like having a separate desk for every project you are working on.
Back in the day, writers had two choices as writing tools: a pen and paper, or a clunky old Olivetti typewriter (or equivalent – mine was an Olivetti portable). Obviously, and thankfully (for most of us), the desktop computer changed all that. I think the first word processing software I used was WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. It was white type on a blue screen and not much else, but at least you could correct a misspelling without reaching for the Tipp-ex.
Eventually Microsoft Word took on the mantle of ‘go to’ writing tool, and it has reigned supreme for over 20 years. MS Word is ubiquitous to say the least, particularly in workplaces. ... However, there are hundreds of alternatives to Microsoft Word if all you want to do is write. They fall broadly into three groups.
Writing a non-fiction book or ebook on a subject you know a lot about is a bit like tidying the house. There is a ton of stuff in there (the house, and your head) and the challenge is to spread it all out, sort the good from the bad, then neatly arrange the good in a logical and satisfying way.
Let's start with that first task – spreading it all out. From a writing perspective, that means collecting as much information as you can in one place. That way you can stand back and have a good look at what you've got.
