It’s fun to be a ghost

A peek into my (somewhat secret) work life.

When I’m not writing this newsletter — in other words, when I’m not writing about myself — I’m usually writing for someone else.

As a freelancer, I work with a variety of clients. I write case studies, fundraising pitches, impact reports, and blog posts. I help CEOs find their voices and local newsrooms find donors. Some of these things I write with a byline. Most of them, lately, I write without my name attached.

Somewhere along the way, I became a ghostwriter.

I had no idea how freeing that would feel.

I spend a surprising amount of my work life pretending to be other people. I spend a lot of time listening. I learn what my clients care about and study how they speak. Then I do my best to disappear. I become someone else on the page.

For the most part, I love it. It’s a relief to write without constantly mining my own life for material.

Right now, I’m living through a season I don’t yet know how to put into words. Some of what I’m experiencing may take weeks or months to share. Some of it I may never write about publicly.

I’m not sure a younger version of myself would have understood this was even an option: to experience something without immediately trying to shape it into a tidy story.

Thankfully, I’ve written this newsletter long enough to know I need to honor the voice that says, not yet.

I’ve also written this newsletter long enough to know how uncomfortable not yet can be. I know the shame that comes with vagueposting or taking a break. The fear of disappointing readers. The desperation that comes with the churn of losing paid subscribers.

All that shame, fear, and desperation is loud.

Beneath it is a whisper: not yet.

I’m going to listen to that quiet voice. I’m not going to write about the season I’m in — the good and bad of it all. Not yet. I’m not going to mine my life for lessons in real time. I’m not going to tell the story before I live it.

What I will do, however, is bury myself in work.

For better or worse, productivity is one of my go-to coping mechanisms. Work gives me something to do. It supports my family. It helps my clients. And lately, it gives me the opportunity to disappear into someone else’s story for a while.

Ghostwriting and all the other copywriting I do isn’t simply a means to an end. It isn’t work I have to get through to get to the real writing. There’s something deeply satisfying about helping someone say exactly what they want to say.

Just a normal Tuesday. (Getty Images)

It’s all a bit ironic, isn’t it?

Through My Sweet Dumb Brain, people have come to know me for writing vulnerably about my own life. Through much of my freelance work, I erase myself. Both of these things — this newsletter and my freelance career — were born at the same time.

I used to think success looked like becoming more visible. More promotions. More presentations. More recognition. Instead, my career has quietly led me in the opposite direction.

I’m no longer the manager leading the team, the organizer guiding the event, or the founder building the platform. More and more often, I’m in the background, providing support, giving someone else a boost.

Turns out, I’m more than okay with that. I’ve found a real sense of satisfaction in stepping back and helping others. I’m grateful to have found a path that lets me support other people without constantly putting myself on display.

Maybe it’s a product of being older and having less to prove. Maybe it comes from feeling relatively secure in my career.

Or maybe it’s because I have this outlet.

Here, my voice is the point. There, I get to disappear into someone else’s world. One feeds the other.

For the most part, my writing life feels balanced: professional and personal, outward-looking and self-reflective, a decent paycheck and terribly paying. (Ha. I wish that last one was a joke.)

Which brings me back to the season I’m in. Among many other things, it feels wildly imbalanced.

Maybe that’s why ghostwriting has felt like such a gift lately. I’m grateful I get to spend my days disappearing into someone else’s story.

After all, my story will still be here when I’m ready to tell it.

xoxo
KHG

P.S. If you’re looking for ghostwriting help, reply to this email and let me know. I’d love to talk. 👻