I've been lucky enough to have two perfect clients. That's a shitty batting average, but in ghostwritingland, you take what you can get.
The question is, what, to a ghostwriter, constitutes a perfect client? For me, it's all about the Three P's, baby: Punctuality, preparedness, and positivity. After years of doing this, it's gotten to the point that if I could only pick one P, it'd be the first one.
See, celebrities don't work under the same time constraints as you or me. Like what time do you show up at work? When you're supposed to, right? Now in Ghosty world, a book equals work, and if we set a 10:00 meeting to prepare said book, I'm ready to go at 9:55, and blah blah blah, yak, yak, yak, you get the point.
When it came to being late for a meeting, my old pal Child McStar set the gold standard, if only because of her remarkable consistency. She was committed to lateness. She owned it. You knew that if she said she'd be ready to go at 9:00 AM, she'd be ready to go at 9:00 PM. It was inspirational. Mumbles McReality wasn't in Child's league, but she represented nonetheless.
The previous day, Confused McManager sent me an email warning me that Mumbles was a late sleeper, and probably wouldn't be functional before noon, but he also promised that because of the urgency of the project -- i.e., two-ish weeks to complete 60,000 words -- she'd be ready to roll each morning at 9:00.
Yeah, not so much.
On the plus side, starting at 9:15-ish, Mumbles stayed in touch with me via Confused McManager, who was assigned the task of calling me every 15 minutes with an update that inevitably went like this: "She'll be ready in fifteen minutes. Promise."
The morning of the first Mumbles/Ghosty interview session, I received seven of those communiques. 7 x 15 = late. Really honking late.
Was it worth the wait? Meh. Aside from the fact that Mumbles mumbled, she wasn't particularly forthcoming. Getting any useful information from her was like pulling teeth, or pushing rocks, or insert your own metaphor here. After two hours of cajoling, I had enough material to write, I dunno, three pages. Maybe two.
Mumbles ran out of energy -- she didn't have too far to go, really -- so we shut it down and set a time for the following morning. Mumbles promised she'd be on time. At least I think she did. That's how I translated "Mrgllefwop gshvinktzoid bnbnanbn ssssssss."
After that waste of collective breath and anytime minutes, I called Literary McAgent. "How'd it go, babe?" she asked.
I filled her in on the Great Nothingness that was our interview, then said, "You know Mumbles is going to China next week."
"It's my job to know, babe."
"Of course it is. But did you actually know?"
"No."
"Yeah, she's leaving the country, and I have nothing, and if it keeps up like this, I'll have less than nothing, and she'll be gone, and I'll be screwed." What I meant by I'll be screwed was that I would be blamed if the book wasn't completed on time. Y'see, most publishers don't give a damn as to why a project isn't completed on time. At the end of the day, they want a book delivered, and if it's not delivered, they blame the person who's supposed to do the actual delivering, that being the ghost, that being me.
Literary said, "Hold on a sec."
"But..." And then, hold music. Two minutes of listening to Kenny G. later, Literary clicked back on and said, "I talked to Confused McManager. We're gonna Skype it."
I said, "Um, what?"
"Yeah, we're gonna Skype it. She'll go to China, she'll do her thing, and she'll Skype you for the interviews. Seriously, Ghosty, I'm a genius. I amaze myself."
"Okay," I said, "Two problems. One, how can we guarantee she'll make herself available?"
"We can't, babe. That's part of the fun. What's the other problem?"
"We'll be 12 hours apart. She'll maybe be ready to talk at noon her time. That'll be midnight my time."
"What's your point?"
"She's already made me wait on U.S. time. If she makes me wait on China time, I'll be up all night."
"That's why we're paying you the big bucks, babe."
I said, "You're not paying me the big bucks."
"Yeah, I know. That's just an expression."
"Literary, I don't know if I can do this."
"What, you don't want to say up past your bedtime?"
"Well, no, I don't, but I will if I have to. But I don't know if I can stay up past my bedtime and write a book in two weeks."
"Oh, yeah, right, you actually have to write the book, don't you?"
"Um, yeah," I said. "I actually have to write the book."
"Okay, babe," Literary said, "let me see what I can do."
Next: Literary McAgent sees what she can do, which isn't much.
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