Photo by Cara Lopez Lee Fifteen thousand people at one writing conference are enough to bring out my inner introvert. That’s what I learned at my second springtime leap into the swarms of the annual AWP Conference , this time in Los Angeles. (AWP stands for Association of Writers and Writing Programs, so can anyone tell me why it’s not AWWP?) People often talk about creative writing and introversion as if they’re inseparable, but thanks to writing’s dual requirements of solitude and communication, I believe it attracts a spectrum of introverts and extroverts. I’m an ambivert: exhibiting qualities of extroversion and introversion in almost equal measure. In Myers-Briggs personality tests, I typically score 51% extrovert/49% introvert. I’ll bet if the tests were not designed for bilateral results, I’d test 50-50. Non-writers often seem surprised to meet an extroverted writer. Meanwhile, writers who know me seem surprised to learn I’m half-introvert. “But you’re so social!...

Photo credit: Google Images Writers are often introverts. We dislike getting “out there.” Many of us are happiest (and feel safest) holed up in our snug workrooms, hunched over our laptops typing away. We are so much more impressive when we write than when we talk! This goes double for ghostwriters. After all, the whole point of being a ghost is that you are invisible. Once in a while you may rattle a chain or two, or emit a low howl in the dead of night, but that’s about it. Despite the popular conception of what a ghost does, you must never say Boo! – it gives away your presence. Of course, introversion is a poor marketing strategy. It doesn’t work for authors, and it won’t work for ghostwriters either. No matter how much you enjoy the background shadows, you have to get “out there” and let people look at and listen to you – and you must try to be informative, compelling, inspirational, or at the very least, nice. People simply won’t hire you otherwise. And they won’t r...