Technology
David Brewster
My book ghostwriting tools in 2021

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.

My book ghostwriting tools in 2021
Work Life
David Brewster
When to avoid showing your vulnerable side

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!

When to avoid showing your vulnerable side
Write a book
David Brewster
No time, money or skill? You can still get your ...

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

No time, money or skill? You can still get your book written
Reviews
David Brewster
The ghostwriter's nightmare scenario

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.

The ghostwriter's nightmare scenario
Writing
David Brewster
The joy of a good yarn

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…

The joy of a good yarn

Writing

Will you and your business disappear without a trace?

Will you and your business disappear without a trace?

The recent commemoration of Anzac Day’s 100th anniversary was as good a reminder as anything of the importance of keeping records of our history. Photographs from that time may be grainy, blurry and often creased, but they still manage to provide incredible insight into a very different time. This, of course, is even more important now as there are no remaining survivors of that campaign – pictures and words are all we have left.

Which begs the question. In another 100 years, what memories will today’s generations have left to share with our counterparts of the future?

On the surface this seems a ridiculous question. After all, we take billions more photos and write trillions more words today than were collected in the early 20th century. But it’s not that simple. There are two major problems, both relating to the fact that so much of what could be ‘tomorrow’s memorabilia of today’ is not stored in permanently useful formats.

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A 5-step writing process anyone can use

A 5-step writing process anyone can use

“I don’t know where to start!” This must be the most common cry of the would-be writer – the person who wants (or needs) to write a blog post or an article or an essay – even a book – but is overwhelmed by the idea before they put fingers to keyboard. 

In this post I’m going to give you a magic five-step writing process to overcome this inertia. However, I offer this process on the understanding that there is no single ‘right’ way of doing this. Ultimately the only right way to write is the way that works for you. However, finding your ‘right way’ often requires a bit of trial and error and this process just might get you underway. 

The basic philosophy of this writers’ process is to start with a mess and end up with a ‘tidy’ finished product.

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Getting past 'I'm not a writer'

Getting past 'I'm not a writer'

Earlier this month we spent a fantastic weekend at the iconic Port Fairy Folk Festival (which, by the way, is much more than banjos and tin whistles). Once again I found myself in awe of the songwriter’s ability. Never mind the music: how do these people come up with such clever lyrics? I could never do that.

Or could I?

I don’t know if I’ve shared this before, but when I was at school (when telephones still had dials and were definitely not ‘smart’) writing was not my thing. I struggled with creative writing and writing analysis and never seemed to be able to find the right formula to keep my English teachers happy. In my last few years at school, English was the subject in which I achieved my lowest grades.

These days I’m a professional writer so I’m probably not meant to tell you that.

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Surprise yourself and your readers by being a little creative

Surprise yourself and your readers by being a little creative

CJ Chilvers is a photography blogger I follow who calls himself ‘A lesser photographer’. He has a refreshingly simple approach to photography which is reflected in his writing – short, sharp posts that, more often than not, stop and make you think.

A few days ago he posted with the heading ‘Surprise!’. ‘The foundation of any good story is surprise,’ he said. As he points out, ‘surprise is the only thing that makes the news’. 

In other words, it’s the surprising photographs that get attention.

This is great advice for photographers, but also for writers.

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The single most important rule when generating ideas

The single most important rule when generating ideas

I had a great idea for a topic for this week’s blog post. Believe me: it was a really good idea. The information I was going to share was pure brilliance. It might even have gone viral. But it won’t now. Unfortunately, I can’t share this idea with you … because I have no idea what it was.

If there’s one golden rule I’ve learnt in my career as a writer, and even before that in business, it is this: 

If you have a good idea, capture it now. Immediately. Straight away.

Otherwise it will likely disappear into the ether.

Unfortunately, even though I know this rule – and the risks of ignoring it – all too well, I still forget it from time to time.

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When writing for the web, ‘age old’ lessons still apply

When writing for the web, ‘age old’ lessons still apply

Way back in 1997 the World Wide Web was just moving out of its Jurassic period. It was in that year that the domain google.com was first registered. It was also the year Titanic, the most overrated movie of the 20th century, was released. (Did I say that out loud?) Yet even in these early days there was recognition that if we wanted to convey written information using the internet, we were going to have to follow new rules.

All these years later, those rules haven’t changed. But they are regularly overlooked or ignored. Let’s recap some of the advice of Jakob Neilsen, a prominent usability guru since dinosaurs roamed the WWW, from a 1997 article entitled ‘Be succinct! (Writing for the Web)’.

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3 types of language to avoid in business writing

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3 types of language to avoid in business writing

Whether you are composing an email to a customer, writing a blog post or copywriting fresh content for your website, it’s easy to fall into the trap of forgetting who you are writing for. It’s important to remember that your audience don’t necessarily speak the same language – or dialect – as you. This can be difficult. The language we use within our own business or industry often becomes so second nature that we use it without thought.

As I browse the web and read various email newsletters, I see examples of ‘inward-looking’ writing that fall into three broad (and overlapping) categories. Avoiding all of these will make your writing more engaging and accessible.

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Keep blog posts short to increase readability

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Keep blog posts short to increase readability

One of the most valuable things you can do for your readers is keep your blog posts short. Yes, it would be lovely if people took the time to read your entirely engrossing essay delving deep into the nuance of your latest self-growth technique or productivity idea. But chances are they won’t. After all, they have 100 other emails to deal with before they knock off.

What’s short? My ideal (seldom hit) is 400 words up to around 600. Eight hundred – the length of a typical newspaper opinion piece – should be the absolute maximum.

If you’re struggling to do this, here are a few things you could try...

 

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    Overcoming writer's block – Part two

    Last time I wrote about overcoming perhaps the most common variety of writer’s block: mental inertia when confronted with a blank page or screen. This time I want to look another common form.

    Every person involved in a creative endeavour – writers, photographers, composers, film makers, painters and so on – can probably relate to this. It happens regardless of age and regardless of experience. It is the situation in which you come up with something that you think is pure gold: a picture, a riff, a subplot, a subject idea. For writers it might be a magical metaphor, a perfect premise or simply a beautiful paragraph, sentence or even phrase.

    You don’t know where this ‘gem’ came from – it feels like there was some form of devine intervention involved – but you do know that it is awesome.

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    Overcoming writer's block – Part one

    Overcoming writer's block – Part one

    Recently I was helping one of my daughters with an English essay she was writing. She’s a terrific creative writer, but can get stuck from time to time – as we all do. As it turned out, I was a fairly stuck myself on one of my own pieces of ghostwriting work. And, as so often happens, helping someone else was just what I needed to help me realise the error of my own ways.

    Between the two of us, my daughter and I had become bogged down in two of the most common quagmires a writer can find themselves in.

    I’ll deal with one of these forms of block this week, and the other next time.

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