Why do I love to ghostwrite? It keeps me feeling whole. But that is a too simplistic explanation. My greatest wish is to leave this world a better place than I found it. But after knocking about for more decades than can be counted on the fingers of one hand, I have come to the conclusion that I will not be able to do anything so magnificent that people down through the ages will make legends of me, such as the ones people make for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

          My alternative is to work with one person at a time. People all have stories. Many of them are absolutely harrowing, nearly all are hopeful and uplifting. In the best of stories, honor, grace and hope can be glimpsed in the ashes of the worst of circumstances.

          Nearly everyone benefits by coming to terms with his or her story. My job is to analyze and reflect back what people tell me of their lives, filling in with description and dialogue to make of it a book that could be published. It is a heady process, this telling of one’s personal story, giving the teller a chance to see his life from a slightly different perspective, as he reads it in the form of a novel. This process often gets family members sitting down together to talk with each other, to say things such as—“Now, how did that happen? — Did he do this first, or that? — And why ever did she act that way?” The process then becomes a meeting through their shared past that often helps to knit them together, which in today’s fragmented world becomes precious—an actg of love. That is why I love to ghostwrite.