Secretly a Ghost Writer

My Story

Hi, I'm Joice Jeong. If you haven't figured it out already, I'm Filipino-Korean (I will have none of those 'Kopino' shit that makes me and my mom feel inferior, my parents are married). I'm in the middle of midterm exams in my first year of college, but I don't feel any guilt at all while writing this instead of burying my nose in textbooks and handouts like I'm supposed to. It's actually kind of like a stress reliever for me, being able to express my innermost thoughts in writing for me to read and laugh at later on. Actually, I'm writing this because I have become very stressed about something. The thing is, I've always wanted to join a journalism club or a creative writing club since I was in high school, but I never really had a chance because I was unable to show off my writing skills because I thought I wasn't good enough. Well, I thought I was only good at writing fanfiction and short stories, but lately I have been praised by my teacher for my argumentative essays and position papers. Okay, I guess I don't suck that much, but I still think I'm not suited for such high-profile writing like journalism and creative writing. Well, here's my story.

I started my not-so-illustrious writing career with a couple of short stories that I wrote in my diary back when I was 9. I can't remember what they were about, but I'm pretty sure they were too embarassing for even me to read (so much angst, ughh). I first got into fanfiction at the age of 12, when a classmate showed me some Naruto fanfiction about the very first 'ship' I ever had, NaruSasu. I began with pairing fanfic before going on to alternative ending fanfics and complex love square fancfics (I've made up these terms, but feel free to correct me, keke). In high school I started writing my very own novel, which turned out to be a novella. Though it never became popular, reaching only 200 reads on an online story site, I wanted to continue writing many novels and short stories though my efforts were never rewarded. Since I also became politically aware in high school I started my own political commentary blog, where I wrote my rants about the crappy politics and politicians and criticized new and existing laws and policies concerning youth and education. 2 years later I was forced to delete it, since my IP address was tracked by an offended politician and threatened to send an assassin to my house to murder me and my entire family if I didn't delete the blog. So I deleted it, and quit blogging for a while. I then ventured into the world of gossip magazines and tabloids, writing opinions on controversial subjects like the RH Bill (now a law) and the pork barrel. I also criticized many irresponsible celebrities but I was safe because I never put my real name and contact info on the paper and besides, it was an offline newspaper. After the newspaper I worked at shut down, I concentrated on my stories and online debates. I actually had a teacher recognize my talent in writing argumentative essays, so I worked on that since I heard that a prestigious college entrance examination has included an essay part. I passed that exam, but I never knew how I did on the essay part. 

One day, as I was walking home from class, I saw a poster for an org orientation of the Creative Writing Club at my college. It said to bring or send thru email a sample of writing for consideration. I actually thought about sending some, but since those works were under a different name though I was the one who thought of them and wrote them, I decided to just give up. I was first hired as a ghost writer at the small newspaper company I worked at by one of its top journalists as he said he was feeling rather lazy that day and had me write all of his articles for the day. He promised money, so I wrote all the needed articles. When the newspaper shut down, he recommended me to some magazine editor of a wildly popular men's magazine who then made me write articles about men's health and had me thought up 'nasty women's confessions' under her name. When famous Internet author 'buzbid', a friend of the magazine editor, read my works for the magazine, she then asked me to write smutty scenes for her declining series. I thought her smut was too repetitive and lacked passion, so I changed so much of her work while maintaing her writing style. The result was that the series made a 'comeback' into the most read works on an online fanfic site. I continued to write for her until she released an offline version of one of her novels, of which I had to correct all wrong grammar and 'spicen up' dull scenes. She then recommended me to her author friends, and that was how my difficult but lucrative occupation of being a ghost writer started.

I saved up quite a lot for me and my widowed mom, but I will have to live with the fact that those million-seller novels, the work of my own hands, will never be identified with me.