Ghost Writers

Our fiction writers’ critique group meets every Tuesday at Barnes & Noble to critique two authors’ presubmitted work and then we go for a late supper at Ruby Tuesday on International Speedway Boulevard in Daytona. We are a cohesive and amenable group, having learned that critiquing one’s writing is not criticizing the writer. Because of this camaraderie, we have a good time at the restaurant. The first person to arrive is in charge of making our numbers known to the hostess. They always ask for a name and we always say, “the writers.” This past week, I happened to notice the card she left at our table for the server. She had written, “Riders,” which triggered the following thought:

Ghost Writers in the Sky

The writer laid her mouse to rest one dark and stormy day

Upon a chair she rested as she dreamed her day away

When all at once a mighty dream of haunted men she saw

A-marching through the monitor, all looking torn and raw

Their eyes were burning fire and their faces soaked with sweat

Their arms were taut with muscles, their fingers all were set

To help her write her story, their words did thunder by

She paced herself as best she could, and let her fingers fly.

Typing yi ohhhh

Typing yi ayyyy

Ghost writers in the sky.

Their active verbs, descriptive nouns, they poured into her book

They’re working hard to fix it up, and say, “Now take a look,

We can’t be here forever. First you have got to try

To write the story on your own—we hear another cry.”

The writers moved beyond her screen, she heard one call her name

“You want to save your book from hell, and sell it for acclaim,

Then writer change your way of work, or slowly it will die

From lack of voice and choice of words.  And you’ll join us in the sky.

Typing yi ohhhh

Typing yi ayyyy

Ghost writers in the sky

Veronica Helen Hart is the award winning author of The Prince of Keegan Bay –  Champagne Books. First Place, 2009 Royal Palm Literary Award presented at The Florida Writers Association Conference.