Writing About Writing

Author wielding a pile of his books and grinning.

It’s a busy week by my standards, as two articles about my work have sprung up in the past few days.

First, there’s an interview about my upcoming novella Ashes of the Ancestors over at the Scifi and Fantasy Network. I had a fun time talking about writing life, history, & the literary importance of Winnie the Pooh.

Second, I’ve written an article about ghostwriting for Canadian genre magazine On Spec. This is the article that my previous Q&A was leading to, and provides a more detailed and coherent dive into what it means to be a ghostwriter in the modern market. It covers the nature of the work and how to get into it, so if that’s something you’re curious about, then check it out.

And if, after all of that, you’d like to see more from me, Ashes of the Ancestors is out in just a few weeks. It’s a fantasy story about memory, empire, and grappling with the past, and you can find links to preorder it over here.

A Ghostwriting Q&A

After a decade working as a ghostwriter, I take a lot of what I do for granted. So when I was asked to write an article about this work, I realised that I didn’t know what to say. I needed to find out what outsiders find interesting about this strange craft.

Fortunately, that’s easy research. I took to Mastodon and Twitter looking for questions, and quickly got them. The article will be up soon on another site, and I’ll link to it. But in the meantime, for the sake of posterity, here’s the ghostwriting QA I did along the way. A few questions have been edited together for brevity, and this isn’t my slickest work, but if you’ve ever wondered how ghostwriting works, then hopefully you’ll find this of interest…

Q:
How do you find “the voice”? Be it a brand, or another writer, what’s the process in learning their style? Also, how do you lose that voice to write something different

A:
I mostly find the voice through reading the client’s work, looking for patterns in their writing and distinctive features. The ticks I hate most are often the ones their readers love, & that I should imitate.

Sometimes for business writing it’s about reading competitors too. I’m crafting the voice the client wants, not the one they have.

And the real dirty secret of this, some people don’t have very distinctive styles. They follow familiar patterns for their genre/industry. That makes matching the style very easy, because there isn’t much of one.

Q:
I’d be interested to know how much of yourself (your own personality, interests, opinions) you find yourself drawing upon, and whether doing so seems OK or something to suppress. Also, how do you “let go”?

A:
This depends on the project. I’m more likely to get a job if it’s relevant to my existing knowledge & experience, & then drawing on my interests is part of the job. Both for that & for other projects, using things I’m interested in can lead to more passionate & informed writing.

But sometimes I just have to ignore my own tastes. I have clients whose books hold no interest for me, but their readers love them. At that point, my job is to set myself aside & write what those readers want, even if I think they have terrible taste!

As for letting go, take a deep breath and think of the money. It helps that this is a substitute for my day job, not my own creative writing, which I still have time for. Bitter experience has taught me to detach myself better from the work, because I’m the writer not the author, & the client has the right to use the text how they want. I’ve still sometimes winced at edits I don’t like, but then I let go & move on to the next page.

Q:
If you have ideas, victories, strokes of genius, unique and cunning plot devices, how do you stay dispassionate about someone else consistently getting the by-line?

A:
I’ve got no shortage of ideas, the problem is finding time to write them. So I save the best ones for myself, & that’s enough. Most of the time, the ideas I like best are ones that wouldn’t suit my clients & their readers anyway, & the stories they’re after aren’t ones I want my name on.

Q:
I guess mostly if you regret that you can’t tell people about certain lines or characters you’ve created that you adore and are proud of, but can’t claim as your own.

A:
Mostly I’m OK with that, because I keep my favourite ideas for myself. It helps that my clients often want the sorts of protagonists that I don’t like, so I don’t get attached. But I’ve had one or two side characters that I’ve got fond of, where it would be nice to tell people about them.

Q:
I’m interested in the how and where? Like how did you end up doing ghost writing? Where do you find the jobs? Are the schedules tighter than with other writing jobs? Do you deal with an editor directly or just hand in a MS that’s unedited to the middle person?

A:
I got into it through a mix of experience & bloody mindedness. I’d done a lot of business writing in another job, & sold some short stories in my spare time, so I knew I could write, but not whether I could make a living off it. I started bidding on small, poorly paid projects on hiring sites like Upwork, got ratings & reviews for those jobs, which let me get slightly better gigs, which over the months & years turned into things that pay well. Bidding on projects where I could use my existing experience & education was crucial, as it let me write with authority, stand out from the crowd, & do good work from the start.

I mostly find work through freelance hiring sites, though sometimes clients recommend me to others. Professional networking helps. I also got work once from someone who found my business website, but only once – this internet thing is overrated.

The schedules can be very tight. I sometimes write a draft of a novel each month for six to eight month stretches, with articles on the side.

Usually I just hand the draft to the client when it’s done, & they edit or hand it to their editor. I have occasionally worked directly with the client’s editor, & once worked on a project where the editor was editing a book I hadn’t finished yet, creeping up on me chapter by chapter through Google docs.

Q:
OK, here’s a question: what do you do when the person for whom you are ghost writing is clearly spinning you a pack of lies?

A:
I’ve never helped write an autobiography, so I don’t know how I’d handle it there.

The closest I’ve come to this was working for a cryptocurrency startup, before I learned about what a toxic garbage fire crypto is (I wouldn’t take that work now). As the job went along, it slowly dawned on me how much of what they were saying was hype & bullshit. I trod a careful line to stay honest while trying to stick to their narrative, & fortunately they ran out of real money to pay me before I had to say “too far, I won’t write this”.

Q:
Apart from that, what comes to mind is whether clients are hands-off after picking a ghostwriter or get more involved in needing to approve the text and/for asking for revisions.

A:
Depends on the client and my relationship with them. Some just leave me to it, some give regular feedback & direction as the chapters roll in. I often don’t see the final version, so I couldn’t say how many just accept what I give them without a few tweaks, but I don’t think many make big changes.

The oddest one (not in a bad way) was when I was part of the team producing stories for a non-existent author. We worked in Google docs, & I had notifications coming in when the editor made changes or comments to what I’d written. I could see them creeping up a few chapters behind me even as I wrote.

Q:
How did you get into it? Are the courses and classes I constantly see advertised worth it?

A:
I can’t advise on the courses and classes, as I’ve never taken them.

As for how I got into it, see above.

Q:
How does the pressure weigh up against your own writings?

A:
There’s more pressure time-wise, which means I get stuff done. That’s been good for improving my discipline as a writer.

There’s less pressure to write something bold, new, & exciting, because that’s seldom what my clients want, & because I’m not competing with other fiction writers for the attention of editors & agents.

Q:
Is there a minimum/maximum amount of input from the client you require/prefer?

A:
I prefer more input, as it means I’m more likely to write what they actually want, which avoids disputes later. But I’ve spun a whole novel out of a three-line brief, so actual requirements are low.

Q:
Is the connection to the story/world/characters as intimate as your own stuff? How do you prevent/manage bleed over inyour own work?

A:
The connection’s seldom as intimate – these aren’t my characters, even if I created them, they’re not designed to appeal to me, so it’s easier to let go.

As for bleed over, the sorts of stories my clients want are different enough from mine that I don’t think anything’s slipped form one into another. I approach them with a different mindset. I expect I’ve repeated a few notable phrases, because I forgot I’d already used a cool collection of words that pops into my brain, but at the macro scale, they’re very separate.

Q:
My question would be how one works with someone who has disagreeable views or problematic ones? Is one able to pick and choose, or are contracts flexible enough to avoid this?

A:
To some extenet, I pick and choose. For example, I don’t write for cryptocurrency people anymore, because of what I’ve learned about that tech.

Aside from that, I had a client once where hints of unpleasant views peeked around the edges of the project brief. I wrote the document within the boundaries of what I was comfortable with, submitted & got paid, & braced myself to say I was too busy next time he approached me. Never heard from him again.

That aside, I couldn’t ghostwrite fiction without sometimes having to write tropes I dislike, especially when it comes to the implications of gender roles. Unfortunately, that’s what some audiences & subgenres expect. I have lines I won’t cross, & I write these stories as progressively as I can get away with, drawing attention to the bullshit where I can. And the less problematic the client’s stories, the more likely I’ll work for them again.

Q:
How do you structure your rates? Did it take you a long time to be able to accurately estimate a project? What training did you receive? Do you only ghostwrite or do you offer other services too?

A:
My training is a mix of business writing experience from a past job & fiction writing experience I got in my spare time. No formal fiction qualifications, just a lot of time listening to Writing Excuses. The most relevant non-fiction training was the English element in my primary teacher training & on-the-job advice by a manager in a complaints team I worked in.

My rates depend on the structuring of the job. I have an hourly rate for research, planning and revision work, a per-word rate for fiction writing, & a different per-word rate for non-fiction writing. I put the rates up regularly, when I can get away with it, but sometimes accept lower rates when I need the work. If I have to provide an estimate for a whole project, it’s based on projected wordcount & the extent of planning, research, & revisions. Plus the inevitable sprinkling of guesswork.

I mostly only do writing for hire, which includes ghostwriting. Very occasionally I do editing or revisions, but I prefer writing when I can get it.

Q:
What do you like about ghostwriting, what kind of writers would you recommend it for?

A:
The best question!

I love writing as an activity, & ghostwriting lets me do that for a day job, instead of sitting in an office or a shop or something like that. The craft is the joy, & it’s made me better at my own writing.

I’ve also learned, from doing this, that I love working freelance. In an office, I had to tolerate the bullshit of people higher up the hierarchy. Now, if I don’t like working with someone, I just say I’m too busy for their work. Or if I need the money too much to say that, then the fact that I’ve made that choice makes the bullshit bearable.

I’d recommend it for writers who can sit down and force themselves to write when they need to. If you’re the sort of writer who can do that, then it’s a great way to develop your writing muscles. But if your writing comes to you in bursts of inspiration or brief flashes after which you need to go let your mind rest & the subconscious do its thing, then this isn’t for you.

Writing is exercise for the brain. It’s strengthening, but it’s also tiring. The merits of this work depend upon how you balance those two things.

So there we go, a bunch of Qs and some rough As. I’ve written a more polished and insightful article based partly on this, which I’ll link to when it goes live. And if you’ve got a question that I haven’t answered here, feel free to ask me on Mastodon or Twitter, I’m always happy to talk about my work.

The Struggle to Keep Writing

Sometimes, keeping writing is a struggle. I know all the arguments for keeping going. The ones based in passion, in professionalism, in the need to pay my bills. I know that once I start writing the words will eventually flow. I know that sometimes you’ve got to write crap and refine it into something sophisticated later. All of that is there in my head whenever I sit down at the keyboard. But some days it’s a struggle to keep going. When you’ve been locked up in the house for days without direct human contact. When your understanding and that of a client are wildly at odds. When there’s too much work or too little work or just the sort of work that’s frustrating to deal with. When you don’t want to write the thing you’re getting paid for, but the alternative is not being paid to write at all. There are more days like that at the moment. The covid-19 crisis has made the world a tougher place to deal with and that makes everything feel like a struggle. Sadly, this isn’t letting up any time soon. So acknowledge those frustrations. Recognise them. Own them. Accept that the feelings they bring are valid. Then find a way to burn off the worst of that frustration, whether it’s by blogging about it, going for a walk, or killing a hundred orcs in a computer game. And once your mental health can take it, get back into the seat and find a way to keep writing, because all the reasons to keep writing still stand.

Spinning the Plates

I have no idea why spinning plates on top of sticks ever became a thing, never mind how it became the top metaphor for dealing with lots of work at once. Regardless, it’s how I feel as a freelancer – someone constantly spinning plates.

There are those dull but expensive plates of freelance work, the ones that will pay the bills.

There are the exciting looking ones, the projects I want to work on, but that take way more time than they should to keep them in the air.

There are the dull administrative plates of emails, invoices, and other admin.

The scary, razor-edged plates of bidding on work, where you know your ego is going to get cut.

The distracting plates of social media – useful for keeping the rest spinning, but not if you spend too much time with them.

And the crazy thing is, sometimes it’s a lack of plates that makes things stressful. The moment you get to pause for a moment, feel guilt that you’re not spinning a plate, and then worry about the absence of a particular sort of crockery.

Do plate spinners get tense when a quiet moment comes, or is that where the analogy breaks down? I don’t know, maybe I should try spinning real plates and see how it feels. After all, there’s always time for one more activity, right?

FantasyCon is Coming!

It’s almost time for FantasyCon, that magical time of year when a bunch of fantasy fans and professionals get together in a hotel to enthuse about our shared passions. This year we’re near Glasgow, my first foray into Scotland in twenty years, and I can’t wait.

I’m only on one panel this time, Franchises and Ghostwriting, at one o’clock on Saturday afternoon. There, I’ll be moderating a discussion with Charlotte Bond, Una McCormack, and Mark Morris on some of the less-discussed options for professional writers. So if you’re at the convention this weekend please come along, or at the very least find me to say hello in the bar.

Time, Money, & Stressing Out

Sometimes, being a freelancer can be stressful.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my biggest ongoing projects ended with about a week and a half’s notice. About the same time, the website that I consider my reliable backup source of income, the one I would have used to fill that gap in the short term, stopped buying articles. Suddenly, my financial position became a lot more precarious.

In theory, I’m in a good position to weather this sort of storm. I don’t have a mortgage or rent to pay. My only dependent is my cat. I banked a bunch of savings last year, partly to see me through moments like this.

And yet, when those two things hit, I felt a sharp twist of panic in my guts. My level of gainful employment was about to plummet. I needed to find more work asap.

So I started looking for that work and I quickly got an offer. The pay was half of what I normally ask, but that wrenching feeling in my guts told me I should accept it. That feeling kept insisting “You need the money!”

Then I took a step back and thought about how my job works.

As a freelancer, the way I value myself isn’t just about how much money I get. It’s about how much money I get relative to the time I put in. If I let myself take this offer, I would be undervaluing myself. I’d lose a lot of time, time I could spend looking for better paid work. It might pay off in the short term, but in the long term, I’d be undermining my own efforts.

So I took a deep breath and said no. Then I got back to bidding on projects, and soon enough, I had offers coming in from other potential clients. Clients who recognised what I was worth and who were willing to pay for that.

It’s easy to give in to stress and take the first way you find out of a situation. But sometimes it’s worth hanging on and waiting until you’ve got an option you actually want.

Ghostwriting – How This Weirdness Works

A lot of people have the same reaction when I tell them that I ghostwrite fiction. It’s a mixture of curiosity and confusion. Ghostwriting sounds like an exciting thing to do, but what does it actually mean? And how does it even happen?

Well…

What I Do

Fiction work for hire, whether as a ghostwriter or a named contributor, is extremely variable.

Sometimes I get hired to plot a novel, then never touch it again.

Sometimes I get hired to write a novel based on a plot someone’s already written.

Sometimes I get hired to do the whole thing, based on a concept the client has or a genre they want to publish in.

Sometimes it’s consulting with a client, helping them to develop their ideas.

There’s also a lot of editing work, though I don’t often do that.

The genres vary. There’s a lot of work out there for romance writers, as that’s a huge part of publishing. But it’s not my genre, so I only write romance as part of something else. I’ve been hired to work on space operas, dystopian sci-fi, urban fantasy, thrillers, hard sci-fi, folktales, and historical fiction.

I also do non-fiction ghostwriting, but that’s a post for another time.

Finding Work

I find most of my working through freelance hiring websites. Clients post details of jobs they want done. I browse the jobs and find ones that I’m interested in, based on the budget, conditions, and how interesting the work looks. Then I make a bid, saying what I would provide, how much I would charge, and what relevant skills and experience I have. The clients pick between bidders.

These sites are incredibly helpful. Partly, that’s because they put a bunch of jobs in one place. But it’s also because of the feedback mechanisms. Clients and freelancers leave feedback for each other. After several years of work, I have a lot of positive reviews and ratings. This lets potential clients know that I’m reliable and have the skills that I’m laying claim to.

Sometimes clients even single me out and invite me to bid on their jobs. The process is pretty much the same, except that I know in advance that they think I might be a good fit.

I also have work away from these sites. Some of this comes through friends and some comes from previous clients approaching me directly.

But Why?

This is the question that seems to fascinate most people – who is hiring me and why?

It’s a natural question to ask. We tend to assume that, if someone has a story to tell, they want to tell it themselves. Despite many examples to the contrary, we think of authors as lone creatives driven by passion and inspiration. My work doesn’t fit that image.

Most of why I get hired stems from the current book market. Thanks in large part to Amazon, it’s possible for small presses and independent authors to make a living off publishing. To do that, they need to have a firm grasp of marketing. And for that marketing to work, they need a steady stream of books. So marketing-minded people, whether authors themselves or not, hire the likes of me to produce books for their publishing machine.

There are also the passion projects. Maybe a client has a story they really want to tell but they don’t know how. Maybe they want to write but aren’t sure how to structure their plot. Maybe they just want a professional’s perspective on their ideas and they’re willing to pay for a few hours of my time.

Questions?

It’s always tricky to talk about this stuff. Discretion is an important part of my work. There are often non-disclosure agreements. Even when I can technically talk specifics, I’m wary of doing so.

But if you have questions, if you want to know more, then feel free to ask in the comments. I’ll answer those I can. Because this is an odd job and a brilliant job, and I’m happy to talk about it.

Sci-Fi Addicts

I have another sf+f related freelance gig, this time writing articles for Sci-Fi Addicts. I have pieces coming up there on TV shows that deserve remakes, why Preacher is such an amazing comic book, and the mismatched plot and mechanics of Fallout 4. So if you’d like to read more from me, as well as other interesting sf articles, then please check it out.

Staying Motivated to Write

editing I’m a great believer in the importance of measuring what you achieve. Maybe you’ll count how many words you’ve written, how many stories you’ve sold, how many hours you’ve put in. However you do it, it stops you dodging the awkward question of “am I actually writing”.

But how you use this to stay motivated is very personal and it can change over time. You shouldn’t get trapped in using somebody else’s approach, even when that somebody else is you in the past.

For example…

For the past year, I’ve been measuring my achievements but not setting firm goals. I had so much else going on in life, setting targets became too daunting. The thought of failure put me off achieving them. They were counter-productive.

I still measured what I achieved, and celebrated it with fellow writers. I kept track of story sales and freelance earnings. But there were no targets.

Five weeks ago, that changed.

Worries about income were making me tear my hair out (not that I have much hair to tear – number one cut all over means never getting hat hair). I needed to be sure that the money was flowing. So I set myself a target. I would aim to do freelance work worth a certain amount each week. And to do this, I’d work out beforehand what that work consisted of.

This time, the targets have proved motivating. I discovered that I could easily earn more than I was doing just by getting focused. Even in weeks disrupted by my house move, I’ve either hit those targets or caught up the next week. It’s relieved the pressure in my brain, letting me relax. Once I’ve finished settling in at the new house, I’ll have time to properly get back to my own stories.

Maybe in six months or a year I’ll need new targets. Maybe they’ll be different figures, or monthly instead of weekly. Maybe I’ll go back to measures. The important thing is that I use what gets me motivated, instead of getting stuck in a rut.

Do the same thing. Work out what gets you motivated and use it. Learn from others but don’t blindly follow them. Even when those others were once you.

A Writing Update

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update on where I am writing-wise. So, for those who are interested, and to keep myself honest, here it is.

My Fiction

As I mentioned around the start of the year, life descended into chaos in the last few months of 2015, and I fell way behind where I wanted to be. Now that I’m back on top of life, I’m trying to crack on with self-publishing again.

I hope to put out a new e-book of some sort roughly every two months. A Mosaic of Stars was meant to be the February release, but ended up being a few days late. I’m aiming to put out a short story set in medieval England as a free e-book in April – all that’s needed at this point is the edits. Meanwhile, I’ll get back to writing the long-delayed parts four and five of the Epiphany Club steampunk series, the next two releases. I have plans beyond that, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Meanwhile, I’ve started submitting short stories to websites and magazines again. I’ve had one accepted for an anthology from the publishers of Avast! Ye Airships. Hopefully more will follow – watch this space.

Freelancing

I have enough work to live off for the next few months, and it’s all interesting. Some ghost written fiction, some writing about writing, and a load of military history. Writing things I enjoy is very motivating.

Clients have started approaching me rather than me always chasing them. So far that’s mostly been with work I don’t want, but hey, it’s a step forward. The more experience and reputation I build up, the more work I get offered, and the better it is. Now I’m hitting my deadlines again, I can start to build up a financial buffer to take time off for my own writing.

Blogging

I’m currently writing each week’s set of blog posts eight days before the first one will go out. That relieves the pressure I felt when I was writing each one the day it went out, or even writing a weekly batch just before the first one appeared. It makes the content a little less timely, but provides me with prepared posts in case something gets in the way of writing. And I can always juggle the schedule if something comes up I want to respond to quickly.

So again, things are going pretty well.

Elmo

My able assistant Elmo the kitten is now six months old, and I’m not sure I can call him a kitten any more. Certainly not to his face. He still keeps trying to play with the keyboard, but doesn’t persist for long because he knows I’ll stop him. He’s a mad little beast, but is at least learning not to bring his claws out when we play.

That’s about it – the start of play for Andrew Knighton, writer, as of mid March 2016. Here’s hoping things keep on improving.