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

5 rules for writers when working with fonts

5 rules for writers when working with fonts

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.

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Writing a book? Dig deeper for a better story

Writing a book? Dig deeper for a better story

I’ve just finished watching the excellent television drama House of Cards – the US version starring Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood. If you’re into politics, it’s a must see.

During the third and final season, one of the subplots involves a writer, Thomas Yates, who is commissioned by Underwood to write a biography of him. In many ways it’s a poisoned chalice for Yates. The book is always intended as a puff piece.

Nevertheless, there are some interesting interactions between subject and writer across a number of episodes – interactions I think many ghostwriters and biographers could relate to.

A theme that ran particularly true for me was Yates’s challenge in getting any level of detail out of Underwood.

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Why I (sadly) won't be buying an Apple Watch, and you shouldn't either

Why I (sadly) won't be buying an Apple Watch, and you shouldn't either

I am an unashamed technophile and fan of virtually all things Apple. I’m always pretty keen to get my hands on the newest Apple release in fairly quick time, so I am instinctively drawn towards the freshest fruit on the tree: the Apple Watch.

Three things held me back from yielding to this temptation early on. First, the Apple Watch doesn’t come cheap. I need to know $500+ would be money well spent. Second, and with that in mind, I don’t wear a watch – I haven’t for years – so I need to be convinced that I would be comfortable wearing this ‘timepiece’. And third, history tells us that the second generation of Apple’s devices is usually a big step forward from the first so perhaps better to wait a year regardless.

However, after reading and listening to a number of reviews of the watch (such as this one), I’m even less convinced that I will ever need an Apple Watch. While it aims to make us more productive, my current thinking is that it could quite possibly do the opposite.

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Why overindulging in the exclamation mark is bad for your writing's health

Why overindulging in the exclamation mark is bad for your writing's health

For my recent 50th birthday my wife gave me (at my request) an electronic drum kit. My daughters rolled their eyes. “Mid-life crisis” they said loudly, without having to say anything at all. (There was general acknowledgement that alternative mid-life crisis choices could have been far worse.)

Anyway, to come to the point. As I work my way through a couple of drumming books and numerous YouTube clips, there’s one message that comes through time and time again. It’s that good drumming isn’t about lots of fancy stuff. It’s about keeping a good steady beat most of the time and stepping it up with a flourish once in a while. The art is less about complexity and more about timing – knowing precisely when to break out for maximum impact.

All of this came to mind when I was chatting to editor Heather Kelly the other day. Heather has years of editing experience and has always been an advocate for very sparse use of exclamation marks (or ‘exclamation points’ as they are called in the US). It is a very lucky exclamation mark indeed that survives Heather’s red pen.

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How to say what you want to say in a different and interesting way

How to say what you want to say in a different and interesting way

A few years ago I stumbled on a wonderful series of pictures by artist Corinne Vionnet. Corinne has created her images by layering hundreds of virtually identical images of prominent landmarks, each individual photo taken by a tourist standing in more or less the same place. Her images are striking to look at in their own right. But they also say a lot about the repetitiveness of a lot of travel photos.

One of the biggest challenges of travel photography is avoiding the ‘postcard’ perspective and finding an original way of portraying the ‘classic’ landmarks. There is always a way: waiting for the light to change, for an interesting person to cross the scene or simply moving around to find an unorthodox angle. As a keen photographer myself, this is one of the joys of travel. It also, I like to think, makes our travel tales a little more interesting for friends and family when we get home.

Success in this game, I believe, lies in allowing yourself to look at the world through your own eyes rather than through the eyes of others – taking your own pictures rather than replicating those of others.

This challenge of originality, and the key to success, applies just as much to writing.

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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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5 great places to go for advice on grammar

5 great places to go for advice on grammar

If you’re serious about your writing – and I mean any writing that is going to be seen by someone other than yourself – you should also be serious about getting your grammar right. This is the case even if you are of those who thinks grammar is overrated, that it’s ‘getting the meaning’ that matters. Remember that a good proportion of your readers will baulk at any grammatical error and will quite possibly lose focus on what you’re saying after they come across one. 

In any case, good writing is professional writing. If you want to present yourself as someone who knows their stuff, you need to be able to write about that stuff in proper English.

So, next time you are wondering about the rights and wrongs of semicolons or dashes, where should you go for help?

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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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Two changes to Google rankings you should know about

Two changes to Google rankings you should know about

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is not something I write about much. While I try to stay in touch with what’s going on, I don’t count myself as an expert on the topic. (Which is not to say that the countless self-proclaimed experts on the topic are all experts themselves.) However, there are a couple of changes website owners should be aware of that do (or will) affect the way Google ranks websites.

Mobile search results will soon favour mobile-friendly sites

You may have read about the first change as it is starting to appear in mainstream media. It has nothing to do with the words on a website, but I include it here to help spread the word. 

Dubbed ‘mobilegeddon’, it boils down to this: when someone does a Google search on their mobile device, the results Google returns will (very soon) give preference to websites that are ‘mobile friendly’. Sites that previously ranked highly but are not mobile friendly may fall well down the ladder on smartphone and tablet search results.

What’s a ‘mobile friendly’ site?

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Save your hands, and your time, by using keyboard shortcuts

Save your hands, and your time, by using keyboard shortcuts

A little while back I wrote about the benefits of making the investment to learn touch typing. A benefit of touch typing that I didn’t mention in that post is that it gives you quick and easy access to keyboard shortcuts. But even if you’re a hunt-and-peck style typist, learning and using keyboard shortcuts has its own advantages.

Keyboard shortcuts allow you to get things done while leaving your hands over the keyboard, rather than constantly reaching for the mouse. While this may seem trivial, over a day you will find that using shortcuts is not only a lot more efficient than using the mouse, but it is also creates less stress in your hand and arm. Mouse usage is often associated with repetitive strain-type pains in the wrist, forearm and shoulder.

Even if you are already a ‘Control+C/V’ user, chances are there are many more keyboard shortcuts available to you that you are either unaware of or don’t use.

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