Many people are fascinated with\u00a0ghostwriting, the idea of sitting in a room with a celebrity and being privy to\u00a0their secrets. Their disappointments and fears. Writing in somebody else\u2019s\u00a0voice. Seeing the world through someone else\u2019s eyes. It takes skill and
practice to do it well, but the hardest part of ghostwriting is not the actual\u00a0writing. It\u2019s finishing the book and disappearing. Praise for your work shows\u00a0up in someone else\u2019s inbox. You have to let go of the intimate relationship you\u00a0forged with your client and in most cases, you\u2019ll never see them again. You\u00a0will become a faint memory in their lives and when they appear on the latest\u00a0talk show, they\u2019ll discuss the writing process as if they did it themselves. And after a while, they\u2019ll start to believe it. I spent a good year writing and
editing a woman\u2019s book that hit Number on the bestselling list in a week. I was\u00a0invited to her victory party where she thanked her agent, her manager, her\u00a0publisher, everyone but me. She wanted to keep me a secret because sharing the acclaim\u00a0made her feel inadequate.<\/p>\n
Over the years, I\u2019ve learned to withstand\u00a0the ego shattering inevitability of it all. Instead of looking for kudos that\u00a0will never show up, I\u2019ve learned to appreciate being with someone who so excels\u00a0in their field, they are an inspiration. I get to sit at their dinner tables, see\u00a0what makes them tick and what matters most to them. I get to create a book,\u00a0something I love to do. That, along with a healthy pay check, has come to be\u00a0enough. But when I started out, each project was a test of my ego to let go and
accept terms of the deal. \u00a0\u00a0The following happened early in my
career:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 1998 and I\u2019m sitting at the\u00a0edge of my bed, staring at the television. I usually sit back against a\u00a0mountain of pillows. I\u2019m the pillow queen. But tonight, I\u2019m too jittery. I\u2019m\u00a0waiting for the David Letterman Show to begin because my latest client is about\u00a0to promote the book that I wrote for her and my name is on the cover. It reads:\u00a0\u201cBy (client\u2019s name) and Andrea Cagan. That\u2019s me. The \u201cand.\u201d Sometimes I\u2019m the\u00a0\u201cwith.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dave comes walking out, he performs\u00a0his monologue and and takes a seat at his desk. My client emerges from behind a\u00a0curtain and heads toward the designated chair beside Dave. She smiles broadly
at the applause. Her short blonde hair frames her face. Her suit looks\u00a0expensive. So do her heels. She wasn\u2019t the most forthcoming client I ever had\u00a0but I managed to extract enough material out of her to get the book done. She\u00a0isn\u2019t the prettiest flower in the garden but the makeup people have done a good\u00a0job. She is somewhat narcissistic but no more than any other performer and she was
never mean.<\/p>\n
The book is sitting on Dave\u2019s desk.\u00a0Our book. The two of them banter easily and she elaborates on \u201cthe writing\u00a0process.\u201d As if. Dave picks up the book, opens it, reads a bookmarked paragraph
that I wrote and he holds up the cover. The camera zooms in. My client is\u00a0sitting on a large rock on the beach. She\u2019s barefooted. She\u2019s wearing light blue\u00a0jeans with the cuffs rolled up and a white blouse, casually tied at her waist.\u00a0Her elbows are resting on her knees, her hands are under her chin, she\u2019s\u00a0wearing a soft smile and the title of the book is written in large letters just\u00a0above her name. There\u2019s one thing missing. Me. Someone has placed white tape\u00a0over my name.<\/p>\n
They might as well have taped my\u00a0mouth shut. This wasn\u2019t supposed to happen. I pick up the phone and call her\u00a0agent. It\u2019s 3:00 in the morning in New York. I don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello.\u201d His voice is groggy. \u201cHow
could she do this to me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe put tape over my name.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t do it. It must have
been someone else,\u201d he said a little too quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoever it was,\u201c I say, \u201cshe could\u00a0have stopped it. She should have. I worked hard for her. It\u2019s in my contract\u00a0that my name is on the cover. She owes me that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cListen,\u201d he says calmly. It\u2019s the\u00a0middle of the night, but he slides easily into agent mode, lying and placating\u00a0at the same time. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. The publishers know you. They\u2019ll be\u00a0making you offers. I\u2019ll make sure of that. Just don\u2019t call her and bother her
with trivialities. She\u2019s busy. She has a book to promote.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hang up the phone. I\u2019m trivial\u00a0and there\u2019s nothing I can do about it, contract or no contract. There\u2019s no way\u00a0to fix it even if they wanted to, which they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The moral of the story is that you\u00a0have to love what you\u2019re doing while you\u2019re doing it. You have to \u201cBe Here now.\u201d\u00a0Be where you are. Stop imagining what might happen. Stop remembering what already
happened. Just keep on writing.<\/p>\n
I meet with a friend three times a\u00a0week to take a long walk. Sometimes we don\u2019t feel like doing it but we keep\u00a0putting one foot in front of the other. No one praises us for showing up but we\u00a0feel great when we\u2019re finished. We feel accomplished. In the same way, just keep\u00a0writing one word after another and take pride in the finished project. I\u2019m not\u00a0saying it\u2019s easy to get no outward recognition for your efforts but you can\u00a0recognize yourself. If you keep haranguing yourself and tell yourself you\u2019re a\u00a0failure, then you will be. You just have to find a way to enjoy the doing of it\u00a0and make it worth your while because the process is the reward. Fighting\u00a0against the tide is exhausting and you don\u2019t get what you want. You end up getting
battered and bruised and disappointed. One of my spiritual teachers said, \u201cNo\u00a0appointments, no disappointments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Going with the flow and finding\u00a0grace in what I do is energizing and rewarding. Granted it takes some practice\u00a0and self-coaching. It feels lonely because I\u2019ve signed an NDA and I can\u2019t share\u00a0what I\u2019m doing with anyone, but choosing grace astounds me. When I let of
wishing and hoping and use grace as a guiding principle, I can embrace the\u00a0openness and lightness that all of us crave. We may be discouraged by the work\u00a0and how difficult it is, but now and again, grace shows up and invites us to\u00a0deeply enjoy what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many people are fascinated with\u00a0ghostwriting, the idea of sitting in a room with a celebrity and being privy to\u00a0their secrets. Their disappointments and fears. Writing in somebody else\u2019s\u00a0voice. Seeing the world through someone else\u2019s eyes. It takes skill andpractice to do it well, but the hardest part of ghostwriting is not the actual\u00a0writing. It\u2019s finishing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2573,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions\/2573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}