“If you do this, everyone will like you.”
I remember my first time like it was yesterday. Not the name or the face, just the feeling as I was going through the motions. Methodical. After it was over, there was a wave of nausea, some teary-eyed angst, and then the dirtiness, the feeling of being used. I was eleven years old. And it would keep happening.
The guilt of performing the action started disappearing after a while. Just got used to it.
It wasn’t the “first time” in the physical sense, but I lost my virginity in a literary sense: the pressure to write for others who would proudly claim my work as their own creation.
An unwitting and unwilling ghostwriter.
Innocent at first, it was a game. Classmates would approach me in darkened hallways and whisper what they wanted. “You won’t like what will happen if you don’t help me.” It was as plain as day and I kidded myself that it was a barter system of sorts: I will write for you, then you will present it as your own work, and you and your popular friends will not tease me and be nice.
Throughout the years, perhaps it was a bit of Stockholm syndrome – I grew to love my captors and felt badly for them because they just couldn’t get the words right.
Life as a ghost wasn’t fun. No one knew – not friends or family. Book reports, term papers, essays, you name it, and the requests kept coming in. Every bit of work required a teacher’s good grade. Men, women, it didn’t matter, I had gotten used to being strangely needed in this way.
Ghostwriting has been around forever. But is it really ethical?
Take author James Patterson. He proudly admitted on 60 Minutes that he very commonly uses several ghostwriters to craft his books and most of them were best sellers. Or Tom Clancy. Most logical minds would assume there was no way these authors could have done it themselves. How could one person churn out so many novels in such a short time? Their ghosts probably had mortgages paid off earlier than most of us.
Maybe they just write for the love of the craft. Each person has his or her own intrinsic driver in life that keeps it all moving. It’s their small amount of peace.
Every word you read has been a thought at some point. Strange, right? It was born and then it grew up.
By 20, I had no idea of the number of pieces I had written for others throughout the years. It now felt like this delusional, seductive power. No money ever exchanged hands though; none of the “clients” had ever paid for this service…and I never asked. It was for the love of writing.
My first was a book report for Peachtree Island. My middle was an essay about Less Than Zero. My last was a thesis for On the Road.
It took decades, but I’m over my fear of ghosts…and now I’m a true believer.