Reclaiming My Writer’s Voice
After years of ghostwriting, I could sound like almost anyone—except myself
When I was 12, I wanted to be Elizabeth Taylor. Glamorous, talented, worshipped from afar. Champagne and diamonds and Rock Hudson. Even that revolving-door marriage thing sounded like fun. I typed up witty interviews of myself and pasted them inside magazine covers. (Yes, typed. On my manual typewriter. It was 1972.)
At 18, I was lost in dark, Heathcliff-on-the-moors fantasies, and I wrote by candlelight, pretending to be a scandalous Victorian courtesan.
By 30, with children of my own, I yearned to be both “cool hippie Mom” and Angela Davis. I wrote boldly and furiously of the revolution and free love and the meaning of life.
For the next 20-plus years, I wrote funding proposals, newspaper columns, press releases, and presentations. I ghosted memoirs and business histories and sketchy romances. I wrote speeches for politicians and email campaigns for salespeople.
“Can you make me sound stronger/softer/nicer/angrier?” my clients would ask. Yes. Yes, I can.
“Can you sound more/less ethnic? Can you sound more/less feminist? Can you sound smarter/not so smart?” Sure.
