DIARY OF A GHOSTWRITER

BEHIND THE INK

The clock read 2:17 a.m. when I got the email. Most people sleep when their world whispers at them, but not me—not when I live two lives. One life, the world sees me as a creator, empowering individuals with my positive vibes, guiding them to their next level. The other life… the silent one, a ghostwriter, of shadows and secrets. Sometimes the shadows write back. Raw, unfiltered, the thing I least expect— stories can heal, but only if they’re told.

Sometimes, the stories we fear the most are the ones that free us first.

People often ask what it feels like to write a person’s story. They think it’s a gossip session, a chance to spill secrets. What they don’t see is that ghostwriting is far more than arranging words on a page. It’s stepping into someone else’s truth without losing sight of my own. It’s not just sympathy or empathy—it’s like putting on a VR headset and entering the full landscape of their emotional reality. Their fears, regrets, memories, and shadows become a world I walk through. Sometimes, it feels like I’m stepping into their own version of Nightmare on Elm Street, reaching in to guide them out of the places they thought they’d never escape.

My process begins with questions—real, uncomfortably honest questions. Not “What happened?” but “Take me back to that moment. What did you feel in your body? Why do you think you responded the way you did?” Because knowing why you reacted the way you did is where healing begins. You don’t need to confront the people who hurt you. You don’t need their explanations, their apologies, or their version of closure. Any door that is open in your life—you have the power within you to close it.

One of the stories that still follows me is about a woman who had to make the kind of choice that splits a life into before and after. She left her children behind—scattered in two different states. One child stayed with family members who despised her. The other stayed with her boyfriend. She didn’t leave out of abandonment. She left because staying meant danger. It meant losing her life—and possibly theirs. Walking away was the only path to protecting them, even if it broke her heart in ways she couldn’t name.

Years passed. Her children grew. Those who hated her tried to turn them against her, and sometimes it worked. Sometimes the distance wasn’t just physical—it was emotional, spiritual, generational. But she didn’t let that stop her. She showed up every chance she could. She watched them graduate from high school. She saw her grandchildren, even if she couldn’t be there at their birth. She was never far behind. She thought she lost her children, but she never lost connection. And that, too, is a story worth telling. A story of a woman who refused to let shame, judgment, or time erase her truth.

Stories like hers remind me that storytelling is empowerment. Even the stories we bury are still beating inside us, waiting for us to listen. That’s why I encourage journaling. Not for the sake of writing beautifully, but for writing honestly. When you put pen to paper, you uncover the voice you thought you lost. You discover the parts of yourself you’ve been living beside but not living with.

Your hidden stories have power. They don’t need to be perfect. They just need to be told.

“Write down one story you’ve never told anyone. How does it make you feel? What does it reveal about your strength?”

In the next part of this series, I’ll share the exact email that shook my world—the one that arrived at 2:17 a.m. and unraveled everything I thought I understood about truth, trauma, and power. One paragraph. That’s all it took.

One paragraph that forced me to question the stories I tell, the ones I hide, and the ones I haven’t yet dared to write. Be ready, because what’s coming isn’t just a story. It’s an invitation to explore the secrets we all carry—and the courage it takes to finally speak them.