A fairly substantial ghost

A bit late to the Halloween party but here at last.

Back at the end of the twentieth century I was involved in my local church, and, in particular, in the newspaper they were producing. Having begun by writing a page for children I somehow found myself editing the whole thing, so when the opportunity arose to interview an American evangelist who just happened to have been an NYPD cop I leapt at it. (Actually I tried to offload it onto our regular roving reporter but she was otherwise occupied so I had to do it.)

I arranged to meet him and the pastor he was staying with in a small café in town. I arrived first and sat at a table. Suddenly behind me I heard the door fly open and a very loud American voice saying, ‘The kingdom of God is approaching now!’

I ducked down and wondered if I could escape unseen. I couldn’t.

When Mike DiSanza sat down and began telling me his story I was glad I hadn’t. It was a fascinating tale of life patrolling the streets of Harlem and the Bronx. He finally stopped to take breath and then he said, ‘Good stories yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Make a good book, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Want to write it?’

‘Yeah.’

And thus it was that a middle-aged inexperienced Welsh woman came to be ghost-writing the story of a NY cop.

To write it in first person was a simple decision. Mike’s voice was very distinctive: I could hear him as I read my notes and wrote. I found it easy to ‘be’ him, to listen and know instinctively how he would phrase something.

Finding a publisher was incredibly simple. I wrote to Hodder, the next day they phoned me. (If only all publishing were as simple.) And that was that.

I didn’t like the title. It was what I’d used on my computer for simplicity and hadn’t intended it to be the final title. I didn’t like the cover. But I didn’t mind that my name was only mentioned in the tiniest of print on the back. They’d given us – Mikey and me – an advance which helped to pay for our – Husband and me – trip to New York, so they could do what they liked! I was probably naïve, and didn’t take a small press editor’s advice that I should ask for more or offer it to other companies. That didn’t seem fair somehow. Overall my experience of ghost-writing was positive.

And the success led me to write fiction – and expect that publishing would come about just as easily. But that’s another story.

I’m writing about this now because I’m currently in the process of another ghost-writing project. It’s one that’s been picked up and put down many times over the years, mostly because the ‘hero’ is always gadding about. It’s another Christian book, this time about an Irish man who was a disappointment to his father because he didn’t go into the family business – of robbing. Instead he went legit and, in fact, became a pastor, the one who first introduced me to Mikey, and is now also an emergency chaplain who flies out to disaster zones as and when they occur. It’s another fascinating story. Lots of funny bits, lots of crazy and dangerous bits. Whether it will have the appeal of a New York cop is yet to be seen but if all else fails I can publish it under George Publishing.

Would I recommend ghost-writing? I think you have to have a relationship with the subject that allows you to get into the character. Liking the subject is a definite help, although I have to admit that by the end of time spent with Mikey, I wasn’t his biggest fan. But I was still able to write his story because it was a good one, and worth telling.

Obviously you have to be able to disappear, to be unseen. Your own writing quirks or habits have to be forgotten if you want to be authentic and true to your subject. You can’t speak for him or put words into his mouth, not if they’re words that he definitely would never say, or in an order he would never use.

Ghost-writing takes a lot of time. The interviews and note-taking, the making sense of your notes afterwards, the listening over and over to the recordings – you must record your interviews: you will not remember exactly the phrase or the tone no matter how sure you are that you will.

And that’s all before you try to get it down in a readable and logical way: your subject is very unlikely to talk in a linear manner but will leap all over the place and you have to work out where each bit fits in the timeline.

I suppose if you’re trying to make a name for yourself as an author, ghost-writing probably won’t be for you but if you enjoy telling stories – even if they’re somebody else’s – and you don’t have an idea buzzing around in your brain, or even if you just need a break, it might be something to consider.