My Path to Ghost Writing

             I’ve always been drawn to words and the power of language to convey ideas and stir emotions. My dad used to read to the family every night, so I had early exposure to authors like Verne, Tolkien, Stevenson, and Austen, among others. I remember doing a report on William Shakespeare in the second grade. I fell in love with the stories of his plays even though I couldn’t yet grasp most of the language.

             When I entered high school, this love of plays and a passion for understanding human nature instilled a deep desire to become an actor. I earned a degree in theater in college and even studied classical acting in England. When I returned home, I immediately moved from my native San Francisco area to LA and tried to “make it”. It did not go well. I hated every minute of the hustle and fakeness. Having just come home from abroad to find myself in a city where everyone seemed to be in constant competition for everything from getting jobs to ordering coffee, I quickly burned out.

             Tired of being poor and deemed only as good as my last monologue, I returned to the Bay Area and took one low-paying, low-respect job after another as I tried to figure out my next steps. One of these was as an inventory manager at a jewelry-making supply company. The job itself was terrible, but one of the teachers who made classes for the company was interested in writing a book. She had gotten an advance payment from a publisher, but needed someone to help her with the actual writing.

             I had been writing stories and poems since junior high school, so I offered to help. It turned out to be a choice that would change my life.

             She showed me the first few pages she had written, and I gave her my honest feedback: the facts and steps were all there, but it didn’t sound like her. It was missing the kindness and breezy positivity that had made her a popular in-person teacher. It was knowledgeable, but not warm. I rewrote the section, and it was like a lightbulb went off for her. It was the same information, but now it sounded like the way she taught.

We worked together for many months. As she developed and tested projects and wrote instructions for the book, I edited, wrote, and worked on the structure. When she finally submitted a draft to the publishers, they were amazed at how little they had to revise it before sending it to print.

             Unfortunately, by this point, I had been fired from my inventory management job. Like I said, low-respect. It wasn’t where I was meant to be. Luckily, the teacher I had helped with the book had a friend who worked as a copywriter at Electronic Arts, a major video game company in the area. The friend was about to have a baby, and her team needed a replacement for her maternity leave.

             I was nervous! A high-paying writing position for video games seemed like a dream job, but I didn’t have a writing degree or a background in copywriting. They asked for a sample, so I sent in a chapter from a novel I had been working on. I met with the team leader a week later. The interview lasted all of 10 minutes. He told me to submit an application to HR as a formality on the way out and that he’d see me the following Monday. I knew I’d never go back to low-wage, low-respect again.

             Working at EA was everything I had hoped. When the maternity leave was over, I transferred to a different team and continued writing game descriptions and box copy for their online store. Unfortunately, it was not to last. Like many in the gaming industry, I was a contractor and could only work for a year before I had to quit for several months. There was a chance my position would be available when I returned, but the odds were not in my favor.

             In the meantime, I took what I thought would be a temporary summer gig working for the cosmetic giant, Sephora. While I was there, one person on the team quit. I was offered a permanent role. Then, just another month later, the product copy team leader left, and I was promoted again. Within three months, I had gone from being a temp to heading the team. I never made it back to gaming.

             Over the next eight years, I worked for Sephora, eventually becoming a Creative Content Director. During that time, I wrote copy for thousands of products, many campaigns, and even some internal documentation. I even trained an agency on our copy process to alleviate the need for temporary contractors (the job I had first held).

             Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. COVID hit the cosmetic industry hard. Sephora went through several rounds of layoffs. I could tell which way the wind was blowing, and I was fine with it. I had very much enjoyed my time with the company, but makeup wasn’t my passion. It was time for something new.

             I spent the next few years working as a freelance copywriter for companies large and small, but something was missing. As much as I enjoyed the writing aspect of the work, I missed the human element that I had been so passionate about in my acting days. I didn’t want to tell product stories anymore. I wanted to tell people’s stories.

             One of my friends, who is also a ghostwriter, suggested I try it out. Since I had already helped with the jewelry book and had been a writer for many years, both marketing and telling my own stories, why not make it a career?

             I put the word out on Facebook. Was anyone looking to tell a story and needed a writer? It turns out, someone did. A friend of a friend had written a journal of his experiences growing up in foster care. It was a beautiful story of family and redemption. This was what I was missing. We came to an agreement, and I got to work. With his input, I modified some of what he had written, added complete chapters and sections, talked with others from his past, and researched the foster care system.

             Together, we created a book we could both be proud of. It gave him closure on a dark chapter of his life, honored his adoptive mother, and gave back to the foster community by raising money for a local charity. For my part, I made a bit of money and also learned a tremendous amount about what it takes to write and publish a full-length book.  It took all the skills I had learned over the years, but also embodied everything I had been missing as a copywriter: human connection in all its vulnerability, fragility, and resilience.

             Now I have thrown myself into the career. I have attended conferences, studied, and developed industry connections. I’m continuing to deepen my skills as I write my first nonfiction book entirely for myself. One that I hope to publish in the next couple of years.

             Today, I bring my passion for human stories, my hard-won skill as a writer and a marketer, and my growing knowledge of the publishing landscape to my work. I help people share ideas worth sharing and change the lives of others with my writing. I finally love what I do the way I used to love the theater, and in a way, I am still acting. I have a job where I capture someone else’s voice and perspective and present it on the page. In doing so, I help the innovative, the compassionate, and the passionate give their gifts to the world.

             I’m a ghostwriter, and I love what I do.