When I ghost write novels, I try to include the 'author' in every way possible. I discuss character changes and additions, added storyline, and why you can't write 'he nodded with a smile' after each and every section of dialogue. Nobody does these things! Readers need to immerse themselves into your book so that they feel your characters a real. And if all they do is nod with a smile, you've practically created a race of robots that could audition for the next Terminator movie. Many people provide me with chapter outline, but these outlines usually don't include anything except for a heated conversation and a day out at the beach. Every single chapter needs to mean something. Chapters need to have their own plot, characters, and storyline. Something has to happen that leads to the next chapter, otherwise you've got a row of wooden blocks, and when you string them together they could become a xylophone, but, oh, sorry, they can't. They're just a bunch of fragmented wooden pieces with metallic edges that ting when you hit them.
I guess I shouldn't be too picky with writers, since my novels aren't as polished as they could be. I just don't like writers without passion. Without heart. Without emotion. I create characters who are real to me, and even though they live inside my mind, their lives are not inconsequential. They're part of a story that affects people. I hate it when people write stories with characters that don't actually affect anyone.
Maybe I should get out of the ghost writing business altogether. I'm really getting sloppy with one client because they haven't paid me the full amount for an earlier book, and has commissioned me for a second one. Write it yourself!
I really love to write things with humour. I have a witty, dry, sarcastic kind of humour. I make fun of things that aren't funny. I'm actually quite mean. I laugh when people fall over, I laugh when someone injures themselves in any way. In fact, all unfortunate occurrences are hilarious in my mind. As long as no one is seriously hurt, or suffers from death, but a broken arm doesn't count. Suck it up. Whenever I fall over in public and embarrass myself, I laugh it off, and make a joke out of it. That's what little old ladies do when they are blown over by the wind at a children's crossing. Joking! Someone should be hired to just roll them across the road. By them some elbow and knee pads, and they'd be set.
I like to imagine what people's lives are like, and envision stories that I could write about them. There's an old guy who catches my uni bus all the time, and he seems kind of lonely. I like to think that he has a wife and kids somewhere in a parallel universe. You know, where Rose and the clone Doctor are. Somewhere nice, and with lots of peanut butter and celery sticks. There's also a man who always sits alone in the food court in one of the shopping centres down the road. I've always been curious to just sit down on the seat across from him and start talking mid-conversation, as though I've just popped off to the loo. Hopefully he doesn't go home and stress about me being a daughter of his that he's forgotten about. A few years ago I befriended one of my neighbours who lived across the road. I would watch him every day sitting in his window all alone, and then one day I waved at him. That way began an amazing friendship, and I was general sad to move away. I missed seeing him in the window, and I was always afraid that I would come back and he wouldn't be there. He's moved now, to where I don't know, but I think he and the shopping centre guy should get together one day for lunch. I could make them peanut butter and celery sticks.
The photo of the day is...
Don't blink!
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