It is 5:00pm, Paris time.
I have, just now, hit the SEND button on a Most Important Email message. It was to the client whose memoir I have been working on (part-time) for TWO AND A HALF YEARS. And the email in question contained the FINISHED MANUSCRIPT.
So let it be written, so let it be DONE. And so it is. I have FINALLY finished this book!
I am stunned.
I am giddy.
I am exhausted after two straight weeks of 8-10 hours daily of editing and more editing.
And I want a big damn drink. Where's the champagne?
I wish I could tell you more about the book, and someday soon I hope to be able to do that (because she's got a really cool story to tell, VERY interesting and inspiring and not one of those sappy hard-luck tales, either), but client confidentiality prevents me from sharing details at this time. Suffice to say, this is the biggest book project I've done to date. I'm not even sure if my own next book, also a memoir, will be as big.
What I have learned as a writer through this long process, and if you are thinking of doing any sort of collaborative writing project with someone--or even if you are going to write your own book--pay attention as this might save you some gray hairs:
- Even when you plan and have the best of intentions, sometimes life screws up your writing schedule. Be prepared to grovel and beg the client's forgiveness if that happens, because they have a right to expect you to meet your obligations, even if you decide to move to France, fall in love and get married in the middle of your writing project.
- Sometimes you have to just freaking WRITE IT ALREADY, even if you aren't in the mood to write at all. For weeks on end, even.
- Compromise is key when you are ghostwriting and co-authoring something. This project started out as a ghostwriting gig but the client in question contributed so much good stuff that I was able to integrate a lot of her own words, and just had to polish them up in places (she's not a native English-speaker, which is one reason why she hired me). Sometimes, I had to "pull rank" over certain word choices, as the alleged "expert", but sometimes I had to step back, put my ego aside, and let the client say it the way she wanted to say it so it sounded like her and not ME.
- Be prepared to stand your ground when necessary, but also know how to be humble and apologize if you've fucked up. There is no sin in making a mistake; the only sin is being too full of yourself to admit you were wrong.
- Writing for someone else is WAY harder than writing for yourself. Because you have to get inside that other person's psyche and figure how they would tell their story, if they had the time or the capacity to do so without someone like you on board, telling them the difference between "than" and "then". My best, and very unscientific, comparative estimate of the time it takes to ghostwrite someone else's book is that it is at least 3 times MORE work than writing a similar book of your own. So if it would take you 300 hours to write your book? Triple it. And then add an extra 1,000 hours just to be safe. And it still might take longer than that, depending on the situation.
- Letting go of a book you've put hundreds, perhaps THOUSANDS of writer-hours into for many months or years on end, is DAMNED FREAKING HARD. But it also feels DAMNED FREAKING GOOD. Know when to say "when". Know when you just have to call it done, and let it go. If there is a typo in there still, so be it. If you should have changed that one phrase on page 294, and you didn't, the world will not come to an end. Just let it go. Chances are, no one will know but you.
Now, all that is left is to give the client time to read it over, and I'm sure we may have a few minor things to talk over or tweak. Oh, yeah, and I'm waiting for my final check, too. (LOL) But as of this moment, I am FREE. FREE!!!!!!
Which (gulp) means I have NO MORE EXCUSES about writing, or not writing, my memoir. It is now my ONLY work, my only job.
This is going to be quite an interesting thing for me. I've never voluntarily NOT actively been working at something that was paying me directly, or not working on getting new business. But now, all that is done. If some small projects come my way, some editing jobs or coaching clients, things that won't require a major investment of my time, hey, I'll be happy to consider them. But for the first time ever, I am NOT LOOKING for "work". Now, my job is to write, and to get published, and later to do marketing and all that good stuff that comes once you get published.
I am now a FULL TIME WRITER. This is now my life's work, and nothing else.
I will freak out about what all that means on Monday. Right now, I want to enjoy the moment, the satisfaction of having finished a very big project and of having done a really good job at it.
Better go chill that champagne now!
