Ghost Writer

The idea of being a writer when I grew up never felt like an option. I loved it, but writing was never deemed a "respected career."

I like to come up with titles that either cause shock or intrigue. Maybe it's the copywriter in me. What do you think of when you hear ghost writer?

Professionally, a ghost writer is someone who writes as someone else. In my current job, I've had the privilege of being the ghost writer for our VP of Planned Giving, and occasionally the CEO. But outside the workforce, I sometimes picture a ghost 'anything' to be someone invisible, underrated, overlooked.

I personally think anyone with a blue collar job is overlooked. Teachers are becoming overlooked. People in customer service are overlooked. Our society has not only engrained that value comes from productivity, but that status and worth only come from "respected careers."

I'm not undermining the medical field, engineers or lawyers, we still desperately need them and always will, but they are not more valuable or worthy of respect than mechanics or sales clerks. Just because you have a career that society deems "impressive" does not mean you are automatically going to be successful.

I think it's great that schools are encouraging women to join STEM careers, but what about the students who weren't created with that kind of technical mind, or even the ones who were but just don't want a career like that?

Growing up, I loved school. I loved learning new things, I loved the structure and responsibility of school, but I was an awful standardized test taker; therefore, by not testing into accelerated classes, or being naturally as good at science and math as I was at English and history, I went Kindergarten through most of college thinking I was dumb.

I loved to write. In high school, when I did my homework, I would keep my journal slid under my textbooks so when my parents came in my room, it looked like I had been studying pre-calculus and chemistry for hours.

The idea of being a writer when I grew up never felt like an option. I loved it, but writing wasn't a respected career. It was "easy," "made no money," and not a "real career."

Fortunately, I have parents who are very successful at what they do and they are an arborist/horticulturalist and career counselor-- so, neither of them have careers that society says are "respectable careers." They experience people looking down on their careers all of the time, so they raised my sister and I with the understanding that not only is every career respect-worthy, but that all parts of the body of Christ are important (1 Corinthians 12:12-27), and no one is more superior than another.

As both a writer and graduate student studying writing, I have had to learn to disregard ignorant comments about how my gifts, passions and career aren't a "worthwhile career/contributing aspect to society," "not a real job," "not worth getting a degree for," "easy," or "just writing," and if I had a dollar for every judgmental look I received when I tell someone what I do for a living...

Writing and storytelling are such an invisible, expected thing from society that it's only noticed when it's done poorly. People remember bad stories, and they notice a poorly worded marketing advertisement, but if it's good, just like a ghost, it goes unnoticed.

Being created with a writer's mind, and pursuing a career and degree devoted to sharpening my undervalued skills has taught me so many things that has made the comments and disrespect worth it. I learned the hard way, through a lot of pain, that my worth is not found in my career or job-- and neither is anyone else's. I learned to embrace who I am and not shy away from telling people what I do and what I study, no matter their response.

I know God created me the way He did for a purpose, and He will use mu gifts to bring glory to Him, as He already has. . .