Category: working

A friend of mine struggled for years with her career. Despite her stellar qualifications, she struggled to find work, and when she did, she felt a little unrecognized. She advanced, but for the most part, work was just fine. Not terrible, but not great either. Then she moved back to her hometown and suddenly everything changed. Her skills were in high demand and she started hobnobbing with powerful people. Some of her LinkedIn posts went viral and people started contacting her left and right, wanting to know her opinion or otherwise network with her. This is a stark contrast to years prior when even getting an interview was difficult!

What happened? I can’t say for sure, but it reminds me of something my mentor says, “God is slow but always on time. When it’s time, he moves fast so be ready.” Change can happen quickly so it’s up to us to be prepared. I see how quickly things can change clearly reflected in the trajectory of my friend’s career but also my own as a freelance journalist, content writer, and ghostwriter for therapists.

I can go for months without hearing from potential new clients and then suddenly my inbox is flooded with requests. What did I do differently? Did I purchase ads touting my services as a ghostwriter for therapists? Did I scour job boards for freelance writing gigs? Did I create a vision board? No. I didn’t change a thing.

This is the baffling part of being human. We like to believe if only we do X, then we’ll get Y. Don’t get me wrong, there is some truth to that. If you want to publish a book, you must write the darn thing (or hire a ghostwriter, like me). Effort is required to turn any goal into a reality but how and why something is successful or becomes noticed is still a mystery. An example that perfectly demonstrates this is the #StopWillow campaign on TikTok.

Videos that seek to stop the Alaska oil drilling project have amassed more than 50 million views (and counting). On March 3, #StopWillow was on TikTok’s top 10 trending list, according to CNN. Similar campaigns to ban oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota were launched, but neither of those issues went viral.

“The growth of #StopWillow TikTok has both befuddled and delighted legacy climate groups, some of which were wondering why it took so long for Willow to get noticed,” CNN reported. The project has been in the works for years so why the sudden interest now? Why are people talking about it? That’s what fascinates me. No one can say for sure how and why these things happen. It’s clear to me there’s another force at work. This is why I invite magic and mystery into my business as a freelance journalist, content writer, and ghostwriter for therapists.

Tosha Silver talks about this in her book It’s Not Your Money, and says instead of trying to control everything, instead, you “offer the project to the Divine … you say, ‘Okay, God, if You want this to happen, then open the way. Let the connections come. Let everyone who needs me, find me.’ At the right time, the splendid march of synchronicities begins.”

If you’re able to trust and let go, amazing things start to happen. That doesn’t mean you do nothing, rather it means you act with inspiration, from a place of intuition. You keep doing what you’re called to do and recognize “God is slow but always on time. When it’s time, he moves fast so be ready.”

Are you ready to take the stress out of writing? If so, contact me about potentially working together. Who knows what we could achieve together? Maybe we’ll even go viral. . .

My mom tells a story about how when I was young, in preschool perhaps, we drove in the car with my aunt. Chilling in the backseat, I peppered my mom with question after question (as young children do). My mom answered every single one and my aunt replied, “Wow, you’re patient with her.”

Instead of telling me to stop asking questions, my parents encouraged and nurtured my curiosity. Sure, sometimes I heard “curiosity killed the cat,” but that was usually when I started snooping around for Christmas presents. Otherwise, my parents said, “Have at it. Stay curious.” Keep in mind, I’m a child of the late 80s and early 90s so this was before Siri, Alexa, or any other digital assistant could field questions.

Curiosity has been at the center of my life for as long as I can remember so that’s one piece of my journey to becoming a ghostwriter for therapists. Curiosity is key to an interest in sharing information with others.

The other part of my journey is that since I was in second grade, my mom told me I should be a journalist. I didn’t understand why she kept saying that to me. I didn’t like to write at the time and had no interest in the news. In other words, I wasn’t like Rory Gilmore, idolizing news anchors and foreign correspondents. Writing for a living sounded like a terrible occupation. Reading I loved, but writing? Forget it.

Writing Finally Became Fun

Fueling my distaste for writing was the fact all of my English teachers were boring, checked out, or pedantic. They didn’t inspire a love of anything in me and thus writing felt like a chore.  However, that all changed in 10th grade.

In 10th grade, I transferred schools and had Mr. Whiteside for English. He jumped on desks, played weird music, and wore bow ties most days. He scribbled interesting quotes on his walls and obviously loved teaching. He was the first English teacher who made reading and writing interesting. He was also the first person who taught me how to write. Up until that point, teachers took it for granted that we students knew what we were doing, or they just didn’t care.

Mr. Whiteside explained diction, the difference between connotation and denotation, parallel sentence structure, and more. He once assigned an exercise where we had to rewrite the same sentence 100 different ways. I hated that assignment with fervor but it stretched my brain and demonstrated how much can be accomplished with language. Suddenly, English went from my least favorite subject to the one I looked forward to the most. Writing finally became fun.

Parallel to a newly discovered love of language, I enrolled in a yearbook class. Yearbook gave me the freedom to roam the halls of the school unchaperoned while I visited various classes and events. Art show? Choir practice? Play rehearsal? I covered them all and learned how much I enjoyed observing real life and then writing about it.

I loved my 10th-grade yearbook. I was so proud of it. Everyone put in hours of hard work to make it something special and I knew, I was certain we’d win awards for it.

We didn’t. Not a single one. That crushing blow planted a seed though. I was determined that the following year my school’s yearbook would win at least one award.

And the Winner is. . .

That next year, as a junior, I became editor-in-chief of our school’s yearbook. I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into that book. I worked on it during lunch, purchased a Mac just so I could take page layouts home, proofed every page, and in general worked my tail off.

When the yearbooks were distributed at the end of the year, most of the students didn’t like them because the senior portraits were in the back of the book (by design) instead of in the front as per usual. The student body complained about this and that and couldn’t see what I was trying to accomplish.

That summer, I went to yearbook camp and during the awards portion, not only did my school win numerous awards, but my name specifically flashed across the screen: I won first place for theme copy. Me! Something I wrote was considered worthy of praise! At that moment, I realized, “Hey, I could do this. I could make a living as a writer.”

I decided to study journalism in college, fulfilling my mother’s prediction, and went full steam ahead. There were moments when I doubted whether journalism was right for me, especially when I didn’t perform well on an assignment, but I kept at it because there’s nothing like the thrill of telling a good story.

Journalism to Ghostwriting

I worked as a journalist at various publications for several years (if you’re really interested you can see where on my LinkedIn page) and honed my craft. I became adept at interviewing other people, meeting deadlines, and juggling multiple stories at once.

There came a point though when I wanted to try something new. My therapist at the time asked me, “What makes you come alive? And what do people come to you for? The two combined are your genius.” For me, what makes me come alive is storytelling. I love the thrill of figuring out the best way to phrase something, what word to use to convey information. There’s something incredibly satisfying about landing on the perfect word. However, what people want to talk to me about are empathy and psychology. I have logged soooo many hours discussing attachment theory with my friends. Why not make that career?

So I did. A friend needed a blog written and asked if I could help her. I said, “Let’s give ghostwriting a shot.” It worked out well, I was able to capture her voice and her intention, so I kept going. That’s how I became a ghostwriter for therapists and other busy professionals. If you want to test it out yourself, to see whether I can take the stress out of writing for you, reach out. I’d love to hear from you.

If you’re anything like me, people constantly want to give you advice. They’re quick to tell you how you can improve your life, whether that’s building your business, transforming your body, or creating an ideal romantic relationship. There are millions, if not billions, of advice books in the world because people are convinced they know what’s best. If you pay for their book, course, or some other product, they can show you the way.

Some of this is valid. I don’t know a thing about negotiation so sure, give me some tips. But sometimes, all this advice-giving isn’t helpful. Everything in my life changed as a freelance content writer and ghostwriter for therapists when I stopped following other people’s advice. Or rather, when I filtered out which pieces of advice were applicable to me and which were not.

Here’s the truth that isn’t very popular: Everyone is different and must forge their own path to some degree. What works for someone else may not work for you. I know it’s seductive to follow someone who will “guarantee” you their results, but they can’t guarantee that. No one can. Your life, your circumstances — even if they look similar — are not the same as someone else’s. For instance, in my field, freelance content writers and ghostwriters are told to market every day, to reach out to potential new leads, to perpetually drum up business. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but that has seldom worked for me. Only maybe one of my clients started working with me as a result of pitching to her. Every other client has come to me directly. How does that happen?!?

For me, it wasn’t even active networking. People found me on LinkedIn, or Google, or we know someone in common. My business doesn’t follow the traditional trajectory of “contact a bunch of people and someone will say yes.” Instead, the universe has communicated to me over and over again to relax and allow myself to receive.

When I no longer followed every scrap of advice someone sent my way, everything in my life changed. When I stopped thinking someone else knew more than me about what to do, my freelance content writing and ghostwriting for therapists business blossomed. Again, sometimes it’s important to contact outside experts, but my inner guidance continues to be at play. Why contact this person over that person? I’m the one making that judgment call based on internal guidance and that’s what I’ve learned to trust above all else.

Instead of inundating you with advice, I wish more people said, “You already know what to do.” Or “check in with your intuition. What is it saying?” If more people did that, I wonder what their lives would look like. If there would be more flow and ease. That’s what’s happened for me. Instead of berating myself for not conducting my freelance content writing and ghostwriting for therapists business the way I “should,” I’m doing what’s best for me and that’s made all the difference.

If you’d like to work together, get in touch. Let’s see if we’re a good fit.

There’s a lot of exploitation in my industry. There are many individuals and businesses that want to pay writers what amounts to essentially minimum wage (or less). They think $42 for a 1,000-word piece is reasonable (it’s not). Do you know how long it takes to physically write 1,000 words? Hours. Plural. And that’s just the writing, not the researching or editing that makes the piece readable.

Compounding the exploitation problem, there are writers willing to take on that low-paying work. I don’t blame them because I know what it’s like to feel desperate, but unfortunately, the plethora of freelance content writers willing to work for almost nothing means writing is devalued. Individuals and businesses think it’s OK to keep paying these obscenely low rates (again, it’s not). The whole thing aggravates me to no end.

Look, I know these days newspapers and magazines are operating on shoe-string budgets because revenues have nosedived. For them, I have more compassion and understanding because they’re struggling to keep the lights on. (But for the record, even small, local newspapers pay more than $0.04/word, which is what $42 for 1,000 words amounts to.)

No, it’s the businesses that aren’t reliant on ad dollars that anger me. The ones that want me to help them boost their search engine optimization (SEO) so they can continue to rank highly on search engines and bring in customers or clients. The ones that have plenty of money but think so little of my services that they want to get the cheapest price possible.

For perspective, did you know the average house sitter charges $30 to $55 per night? And yes, some people have pet CPR training and other things to justify a higher price, but they didn’t go to school for house sitting. There is no “house sitting degree” or International Association of House Sitters, but a house sitter can make more money for their services than a writer. That’s messed up.

I went to school for four years to learn how to be a journalist. I’ve spent the last 16 years honing my skills and applying what I learned not only to journalism writing but also to working as a freelance content writer for small businesses. I studied writing extensively to be able to ghostwrite for therapists and mental health professionals. I pay attention to things like diction and grammar choices so I can mimic the voice of my clients. Don’t I deserve to be paid accordingly?

That’s a rhetorical question because of course I deserve to be paid what I’m worth. But not only me — every person like me. If someone has taken the time and energy to educate themselves, both formally and informally, they should be compensated. If you want to pay someone minimum wage, hire a high school student, not someone with a degree.

If you’re interested in working together, get in touch. I’d be happy to chat.

I was in Las Vegas recently for a bachelorette party and one of our Uber drivers was a real character. He spun a tale about how his father was a Russian assassin that met his mother while on the job and she didn’t find out until after she was pregnant that he was not exclusively a firefighter. The driver regaled us with how he’s sick of soup and can’t eat it because that’s all he had while in Russia until he moved to the U.S. at the age of 10.

One of my friends asked him, “Have you ever eaten mukluks?” and he said, “Yeah, I’ve had mukluks.” It was a trick question because mukluks are high, soft boots worn in the winter.  This guy was yanking our chain, as my dad would say, but he spoke with complete confidence and was an expert bullsh*tter. The thing is, this guy had me fooled. I didn’t know he was lying until later when my friend said mukluks are shoes! Maybe that’s embarrassing but it’s true. I operate in this way because I’m such an honest person it doesn’t occur to me other people are not. It’s kind of ironic then that I’m a journalist because journalists are supposed to be cynical and question everything. (Is it any wonder that I became a ghostwriter for therapists and a content writer for small businesses? Much less skepticism required.)

For me, what I wish I knew 10 years ago (and have to remind myself of now) is that people lie.  Not only people, but companies because businesses are run by people who, again, aren’t always honest. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen for the hype. “If you hire me, you’ll land a six-figure book deal,” or, “If we work together, you’ll double your income!” There’s also the prevalent, “We’re the No. 1 ____ in the city!” I haven’t necessarily bought a session with these folks, signed up for their course, or purchased their product, but I believe their hype. I have to constantly remind myself if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And/or show me the proof, then I’ll believe you.

For me, my “proof” is all over this website. My work speaks for itself. You can already tell I’m a good writer, or the kind of writer you want to work with, based on my samples. Not only the formal samples but this blog too! I’m a freelance ghostwriter for therapists and busy professionals — I support them (and potentially you!) by using my writing prowess to communicate ideas they don’t have the time or ability to convey. You’ll be able to tell that from the paid sample I require for new clients.

Other than that, I don’t make promises I can’t keep. Yes, it’s true, some of my clients have been published on GoodTherapy and in book anthologies, but I don’t know if that will be the case for every client. I can’t guarantee visibility but I can guarantee the effort I’ll put in if you’d like to work together. If you want to give it a shot, contact me. I’d love to support you.