Why I Love Ghostwriting So Much - Andrew Crofts

It has been an interesting month of contrasts. In London I have been attending meetings with the fast-expanding marketing team being recruited to launch the novel I have ghosted about a man called Joe, who just might be able to solve every one of the world’s current problems.

It is now due for publication in the Netherlands next June and in the UK next September. The writing is 99.9% done and so I was able to enjoy the meetings knowing my responsibilities were almost fully discharged.

The nucleus of the party met and stayed at “The Rookery” in Clerkenwell, a wonderful hotel which is a sister to the eccentric Hazlitt’s in Soho and feels like a rather grand country house despite being in the middle of a very buzzy bit of London. Highly recommended and a million miles from the other story I was researching this month in Africa.

The subject of the latter book walked out of South Sudan in search of an education when he was a young boy. He had no money, no papers and no possessions, just a belief that there must be somewhere better than the war-torn, poverty-stricken, politically corrupt country of his birth.

For eighteen months he walked, hitched and hopped buses from country to country. He was imprisoned for having no papers several times and lived rough on the streets of a variety of capital cities. For ten years his family presumed he was dead.

At no time did he consider giving up on his quest and now, less than thirty years after first setting out, he is one of the most highly qualified specialist doctors in the world. The scope of his resilience and his achievements beggars belief.

And people ask me why I love being a ghostwriter so much.