I've been a freelance writer since before 1980, and a ghost writer since 2003, somewhat before then too, so by now I think I have a few ideas on what writing and ghost writing entails.
This is also not to mention editing, proofreading, and marketing books and screenplays.
But I have a team of people whom I send all this work out to, so I'm semi-retired lately.
I do still do editing projects, and supervise all of my creative projects, no matter who is doing them.
Ghost writing nowadays is often seen as a way for an author to "weasel out" of working on his or her own book.
This is pretty silly, and so are all of the recent arguments about whether or not someone "wrote their own book," or if it was done instead by a ghost writer.
For crying out loud, there's nothing wrong or illegal about using a ghost writer to help you write your book or screenplay! It's still your work, and you are only hiring someone else to do the mechanical work of writing for you.
It's your ideas, your baby, and the thrust is about having a professional writer work on your project, enabling you to do other things you need to do and also getting past the fact you're not a professional writer yourself.
So I just don't understand the entire hullabaloo.
It is fine if you don't write your own book and someone else, such as a ghost writer, does.
That should help it read far better than if you wrote it yourself, and free you to do other things.
Writing a book or screenplay is a very time-consuming process, which can take several months and even up to a year.
It makes total sense to hire someone else to do it, especially a pro who knows what to do with writing work.
Anyway, I love being a ghost writer for other people.
I like the thought that I'm helping them, and of course the money can be quite good.
So I feel like I'm providing a highly valuable service for others, and I feel like I'm also making a decent, productive living while doing so.
It makes me happy to take someone's poorly written copy and turn it into something far more readable, saleable and marketable, while keeping to their original "voice" as much as I can, so that it reads like their own work.
I love it when one of my or our books gets made into a movie, and enjoy waiting to see my name up in lights.
And helping first time authors is very informative.
I learn about something new every time I read a new book or screenplay idea, and it really increases my world view.
So it's never boring; maybe it's fattening, because I sit on my ghost writing behind a great deal, but it is fun to read over a newbie's manuscript and see all the things they have to say to people.
So all I can tell you about ghost writing, at least in this short article, is that I wouldn't give up on it for the world!