There is a yellow highlighter glowing on the pages right beside my keyboard. I am sitting in an office downtown with a ghost writing assignment that is already late. It is sitting beside me while I write this post, reminding me that I have bills to pay and other people's brilliant ideas to translate into a language with universal appeal.

It is easy to dismiss ghost writing as something I do just to pay the bills, but it is more complicated than that. Other people's ideas, their work and their research is every bit as interesting as my own. When I think about what is going on in my own life too much, the opportunity to crawl into someone else's head for a while is a huge blessing.

Plus, other people know how to sell their own books to readers. I'm still struggling to find an audience for my books, but I'm not too upset about it. Reading is often a time and place situation.

And then there's the end of the famous author fantasy. Last night, while I was taking a break procrastinating avoiding the laundry and dishes not ghost writing, I was reading Blue Nights by Joan Didion whose work I've admired since I read Slouching Toward Bethlehem as a university student. It reminded me that, really, being a famous author protects you from nothing. You still have to experience tragedy, worry, loss and mortality. You can use the prettiest synonyms for all of those things, but eventually the text runs out for all of us.

Obviously, I need to start reading some cheerier stuff. Any suggestions?