When hiring a ghostwriter, professionals and would-be authors can easily be disillusioned by ghostwriting job requirements. One would think that an English degree, impeccable grammar, and speed are of the utmost importance in the ghostwriting process.

One would think.

But sometimes, as in the case of the grammatical faux pas I’ve just committed, some cold-and-hard rules need a little heating. They need to be shaken on a molecular level; made so palatable that the human soul, accessed through the human brain, acquires an insatiable appetite for that warm comfort.

Consider this:

A professional with something to say, a dream for a book, is a lidded kettle of cold water. If he feels barricaded by his difficulty with the written word, his wisdom, his advice, and his potential for influence are denied propagation. Even if the kettle is toppled over, its contents will be banished to the floor boards, affecting only its immediate surroundings.

However, if someone with a gift for the written word lifts the lid from that kettle with a personal and candid interview and applies the heat that can only come from a personal and empathetic human connection, he or she gives the water the freedom to change state (water:steam, thought:words). That person, the ghostwriter, gives the professional’s passion the freedom to travel into the troposphere and to soar to places previously unimagined. Molecules go airborne.

water is to steam as thoughts are to words

This is a passionate ghostwriter’s gift: to transform thoughts into written words so that they may fly away and profoundly influence in ways that imprisoned thoughts cannot. I believe too many ghostwriters hide behind screens and the long-held belief that writers must be solitary beings cut off from the world and from personal relationships — either as requirements of their job or their questionable mental states. I challenge that “rule.” I’m on a mission, as The Creative Ghostwriter, to bring warmth and empathy to ghostwriting. Never, in any situation, should a sizeable project be embarked upon without a personal, face-to-face or voice-to-voice interview. In order for a product to connect with an audience, the author and the ghostwriter must first connect:  with a friendly conversation; with probing questions; with laughs; with tears. Only then will the work rise above its containment.

If you’ve got a book in you, I urge you to choose a ghostwriter who insists on asking the questions (and valuing the answers) that dig into the core of your soul. I urge to you hire a ghostwriter who is interested not just in your money, not just in your bio, or in what you can offer to the market — but in who you are. Even more, I urge you to choose the ghostwriter who insists on hearing your audible voice so that he or she can then ensure that the same voice reaches the ends of the earth.

Hiring a ghostwriter? Stick to the cold, hard rules if you must — but please, even if the ghostwriter can do no more than boil water, insist on those rules being served warm.