More on: The First Meeting: An Excerpt from my book: A Friendly Guide to Writing and Ghostwriring

When you get a ghostwriting job, it feels good that you won out over other writers. When you don’t get a particular job, no matter how much you wanted it or how well you think the first meeting went, it might be a blessing in disguise. This is true for so many things in life. There are a multitude of reasons why you may not click with someone. It’s like a marriage. When you’re deep in the throes of writing, the client might see you more often than she sees her spouse, so you have to be able to get along and do the work together.

When you’re evaluating the potential project, as yourself, Is this topic right for me? Will she be a nightmare to work with? Whatever the reasons may be to walk away, you have to be aware of how you talk to yourself when you don't get chosen. If you thrash yourself for what you call “failing,” you may never get up the gumption to start looking for the next job.

It’s common for a client to think that writing a memoir will be a breeze, but once she starts digging into her psyche and unearthing her secrets, she may be stunned by the painful memories and upsets that rise to the surface. You’ll need to shoulder that blow. When the material becomes challenging, a sense of humor comes in handy. It’s good to have a good laugh but at the same time, you don’t want to make light of something that has gravitas for your client. It’s up to you to find the balance.

Writing a successful book is always a crap shoot and writing a bestsellers is a fluke. Somewhere between six hundred thousand and a million books are published each year in the United States, and of those, a small number succeed in capturing the public’s interest. Even fewer become bestsellers. That means there are hundreds of thousands of books that don’t get sold or if they do, they fare poorly in the marketplace. It doesn’t mean those writers are losers or their books are crap. If your book didn’t sell, maybe an inexperienced editor didn’t recognize what was good. Maybe your manuscript got lost in the piles of submissions on a publisher’s desk. You need to avoid taking the blame and feeling like you disappointed the client, the agent, or the publisher. Or yourself. If you showed up, did your best work, and the book didn’t go anywhere, it isn’t your fault.

If you do get the job, it’s important to find a way to communicate with the celebrity’s assistant. This overworked, often underpaid woman, (in rare cases it's a man) is in the coveted position of Personal Assistant. She holds the key to the celebrity’s inner sanctum. She’s on call 24/7, she takes on blame, she usually suffers from lack of sleep and she’s often the best functioning part of her boss’s brain. Or the only part. If you treat this hard working person with respect and kindness, when you need something, they’re usually happy to get it for you.

One of the crucial considerations is if you like the client or not. Ask yourself,

Do you feel comfortable in her presence? Is she at ease in yours? Does she seem to have a short fuse? I met with a British princess once who acted playful and eager to work during our first meeting. She assured me that writing this book was her top priority and she was such a good actress, I believed her. But when I showed up at her palace in London, she began throwing tantrums and abusing her assistants in front of me. I’d worked with some difficult women, but she was way over the top.

After an extremely non-productive week, she cracked open a bottle of champagne to celebrate finishing the book. We had barely begun. When I was ready to head back to the states the next day, she told me she was concerned that someone might steal the two measly tapes we’d recorded. She admonished me to keep the precious tapes on my person at all times, even when I went to the bathroom. After all, a spy might be on the plane for the sole purpose of stealing her material.

In a few weeks, when we met again in Manhattan, I handed her one hundred pages that I’d somehow materialized out of mid-air. She took the pages from me and slammed them on a desk. “Where’s the rest of it?” she growled.

“It's been three weeks,” I said, “and we only recorded two tapes. I just gave you a hundred pages.”

“The writer I had two years ago finished the whole book in three weeks.”

I wondered why she hadn’t used him to write her next book. She was so unrealistic and angry, I had to walk away. Hers was one of only two projects that I quit in the middle. The other was a delusional psychic who was deeply impressed with herself and she rejected everything I wrote and none too kindly. I’m willing to be questioned, critiqued, and asked to delete or add material according to the client’s wishes, but I draw the line at abuse of any sort. You should, too.

Some years back, I had to sign a confidentiality clause before I was allowed to meet a mystery client. An infamous White House ex-intern walked into the room. Years ago, she’d been publicly humiliated and I wondered what she wanted to write about. Five minutes into the interview, I realized that she was wondering the same thing. She wanted me to tell her what she should write about. I made a few suggestions that she summarily rejected. I didn't like her and she didn't like me either. I walked away feeling great relief.

It doesn’t matter if a client’s persona is magical or beautiful. She is certain to do something annoying along the way to remind you that she is all too human. If you like her, you can forgive most anything besides abuse. If you don’t like her, it’s like fingernails on a blackboard. Years back, I met with a has-been actress who wanted to write a book about taking a lesbian lover. Her agent told her that the book would be good for her fading career but that rarely ends well. I asked her some questions about how she wanted to approach the material, but on my ride home, she called me on the phone to complain that I had spoken during the initial meeting. I’m not kidding. I guess she wanted me to sit passively and say nothing. Clearly, there was no way I could work with her.

Jumping into someone sometimes else’s skin and writing in their voce requires a kind of sacrifice. Throughout my ghostwriting career, I have found myself vicariously rotting in prison in Afghanistan, getting rained out in a sold out concert in Central Park, losing both legs and winning a gold medal for running on prosthetics in the Paralympics, losing my children in a car accident, suffering from a split personality, training my dog, marrying my childhood sweetheart, and bungee jumping in Australia. I get so deeply entrenched in my clients’ lives, if I were at death’s door, I sometimes wonder whose life would flash before me. Mine or theirs?

When a first meeting is over, I leave with a vague sense of how it went. Then I wait. This is not fun. The client or celebrity will be seeing a number of writers in order to make a choice. I never know who they are and they don't know me. I wonder how long it will be before I hear anything. It could be a few hours, a day, a week, or a month. I once got a job three months after the initial meeting and I’d almost forgotten about it.

Keep in mind to hide your insecurities. It’s your turn to be the actor. The client has to see you as someone who is highly capable and knows what you’re doing. If you appear unsure of yourself, if you’re hesitating or showing fear, the potential client can smell it a mile away. On the other hand, if you appear strong, relaxed, filled with positive ideas, suggestions, a willingness to let her say her piece and lean on you, you have a good chance of getting hired.