The True Meaning of Ghosting

Today, while as Sean Twist would put it, being a ‘word slut’ I had to write about the Litvinenko case. I found writing about his murder incredibly difficult. I have always refused to believe in the bullshit crutch of ‘writer’s block’, but even a hack like me has to acknowledge the emotional obstacles that can get in the way of your words and the page. Writing about the death of someone who helped provide information for one of your books and who may have been murdered for exposing conspiracy theories is like rubbing a dull bruise.

In Global Gangland I was given free reign to write what my then editor called a ‘David Southwell book’. By this, she meant that she expected me to bring some of myself to the subject I was writing about. My direct experiences and personal perspectives could flow into the bare facts and reported narratives. Where it was relevant – the Rettendon murders, the Belfast slaying of Brendan Campbell and my family’s glancing involvement with the Richardsons – my own special knowledge of the topics covered, my feelings, became part of the reporting. My editor also knew full well I could not survey organized crime without railing about poverty and prohibition, that my take on crime would be have some political DNA buried within the text. I always try to make a ‘David Southwell book’ something beyond a mere hackwork refrying of old, cold facts.

However, in my current ghosting job I have to take the exact opposite approach. I have to exorcise myself from the text. Even though I had some contact with Litvinenko and the echoes of his death have been felt in my life, I cannot let a trace of any personal knowledge of his murder make it onto the page. The esteemed crime author holidaying in Barbados I am impersonating did not know Litvinenko, therefore I write the case up in his staccato rhythm, try to include his trademark tastelessness and make myself totally invisible.

There is no informed reflection on the Litvinenko’s character. He becomes simply: ‘Alexander Litvinenko, a former lieutenant-colonel in the KGB and outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin’ rather than a man who generously took time out to offer advice on the Moscow Mafiya and the ‘Tambov bastards’. My views on who murdered him and why are absent, possibly waiting for the new version of Conspiracy Files, possibly to be swallowed deep inside myself to never be published at all.

It is on jobs like this I understand the true meaning of ghosting. You have to remove your spirit from the text. You become insubstantial. Without mass. Nameless and unable to interact with the audience, you do not officially exist and no-one can notice your literary half-life. Naked to the eye, you are condemned to float through the world of words beyond the detection of the reader.

Hack/Backroom Spirit/Wordsmith/Writer of Last Resort

It appears my current word rate as a ghost author is 10p a word. The previous sentence would have cost someone £1.40 if I had been ghosting for them. Of course I would be happy to offer a lower rate to any readers of English Dreaming, English Rain that want to employ my services as a hack/backroom spirit/wordsmith/writer of last resort (delete as applicable).

Today I earned tenpences for the word combinations ‘sexual lubricant’, ‘12-gauge shotgun’ and ‘up against the chalkboard’. Gruesome as this is, it still it beats the time I ghosted for George Best. Trust me, never work ghost for ex-child stars, egomaniacal television actors or alcoholic Irishmen – especially when you have to try to talk with an alcoholic Irishman first thing on a Monday morning for a 1pm newspaper column deadline.

Knocking Out the Equivalent Lazy B-sides

Given that Global Gangland led to some serious death and maiming threats, I was made to promise I would never write a true crime book again. What will I be doing later this week in-between looking after my Nanna and fighting the maddening bureaucracy the social services? Writing a true crime book.

I can claim that I have not broken my oath, as I have not undertaken to author another work. I am merely ghostwriting some material for an established name in the genre. Aside from irritating a couple of my contacts at the Yard, there should be no danger involved in bashing out a few thousand words on recent notable crimes. It should just be hackwork, especially given the insane deadline in which I have to deliver the material.

However, my bloody professional pride kicks in with every gig I undertake. Instead of looking at it as merely a job, only undertaken because I need some money for help cover the recent funeral costs, as soon as said yes I actually began to care. Now I will fuss and worry about trying to write in the style of the author who name will be on the cover so that readers will not notice any jarring change. Instead of just banging out the required word count on time, my head is full of trying to write the best roundup of crime in 2006 in print.

Will the established name I am pretending to be actually care what I do in his name? Possibly not. Like a boy band member whose vocals are laid on in some backstreet South London studio by an unknown singer, he is too busy in Barbados to be troubled about the minor cogs in the machine that produces his income and reputation.

Despite the fact it is going to make life much harder over the next few days, there is bit of me that refuses to let just be a hack. It seems as if I am incapable of knocking out the equivalent of lazy b-sides. If I had been a musician I would have made a bloody useless session player.

Bashing Out Readable Nonsense

Doing the odd day of work as a freelance editor has helped reinforce my tendency to deride any tinpot author* who has pretensions about their ‘art’. Writing about the best ways to infiltrate a terrorist organisation does not make you an artist, it just makes you a writer and a bad one at that if you do not even understand how to correctly use the word ‘disabuse’. Alan Moore could talk about his art, so could Ken MacLeod, Iain Sinclair or Will Self, but no-one writing about the techniques of phone tapping should have any puffed-up notions about the book they are producing.

Knocking out chapter intros for predictable excursions into how to commit sabotage, surveillance and sedition as part of my most recent job has also generated another effect. It has made me resolute over my decision to never again do any ghost writing for former members of the SAS or Security Service. I seem to have a worrying knack for quickly bashing out readable nonsense for possible crypto-fascists to put their names and BEMs to.

*Yes I know I am tinpot author and hack myself, but I have no pretensions that my books are great literature.