Legacy Ghostwriters

1. You haven’t committed a magnanimous act of generosity. Your memoir is ABOUT you, but it isn’t FOR you. It’s for all the family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers who will read the story of your life and learn something. You may not believe it, you may not feel it, but it’s true. Writing your memoir is an act of generosity.

2. You don’t understand yourself. It’s difficult to see the wisdom within a jumble of events and chronologies. By untangling your life and gaining a fresh persepctive, your sense of how you got from there to here will deepen. You’ll be more attuned to your part in who you’ve become.

3. You see yourself through one-dimensional memories. It’s good to share your memories, but there’s a danger that after several repetitions you’ll re-experience the telling rather than the event. Writing your memoir will put you back in the moment, reliving details and reviving motivations. You’ll see yourself with fresh eyes.

4. You haven’t contributed to the human experience. We’re drawn to story because within the safety of story we can imagine what we’d do in that situation, or how we’d react to that person, or how we’d endure that challenge. We can examine our place in the world from the comfort of our chair. Writing your memoir provides that experience for others.

5. Your past is all tangled up. This refers to tangles of emotion as well as tangles of chronology. Writing about your life connects the dots and as the knots dissolve, clarity emerges. With that clarity comes the appreciation that flows from the what, how, and why of your life.

6. You can’t explain your life clearly. I have a prompt above my computer screen that reads Clear thinking = Clear writing. It’s another way of explaining why those thoughts that FEEL so clear in your mind come out as a muddled mess on paper. There’s lots of wiggle room between the ears, but ink on paper is unforgiving. The writing process will connect the dots.

7. You haven’t had the fun of writing your story. My clients consistently report that telling their story, working on drafts, discussing details, selecting pictures, reviewing proofs, the whole process is, in a word, fun. In fact, they say it’s far more fun than they ever imagined it would be.

8. You haven’t done something you thought would be difficult but wasn’t. Working with a ghostwriter is mysterious, and people usually imagine it would be a lot of work. It isn’t. You tell your story, edit drafts, and I do the heavy lifting. It truly is that simple.

9. Your memories shift and transform. Writing your memoir takes you through the exercise of remembering and chronicling. As the story comes together you realize what doesn’t fit together and you put the puzzle piece back in place. And once the book is done, those memories are secure in perpetuity.

10. People continue to suggest that you write a book about your life. It’s easy to shrug off that steady drumbeat of requests for your story. Whether you lived an extraordinary or seemingly ordinary life, there are people out there who would love to read about it.