I realize that 'Postcards' was like input, and 'Ghostwriting' was output. I had all these frustrations and feelings before I did those two projects. 'Postcards' was something that brought new life and creative inspiration into the record, while 'Ghostwriting' was relieving myself.
I worked in the book publishing business for nearly two decades before I turned my attention to writing, first with a couple ghostwriting projects, plus a crappy novel that absolutely no one wanted to publish. Then I moved to Luxembourg for my wife's job and found the inspiration for 'The Expats.'
I've tried in the past to blog about ghostwriting and have failed. I have a lot of opinions on the whole issue, and I'm constantly censoring myself to make sure I don't just sound like a bitter writer.
I wanted to write songs about other people because I was sick of myself, basically. I didn't like myself very much. 'Ghostwriting' became an outlet for that. And then I could get back to get Jens Lekman again.
I actually was doing ghostwriting jobs since I was 17 years old, so I've been supporting myself off and on with writing jobs for almost 10 years. But those were all things that I did off the books. And now I do a lot more writing on the books.
Hmm... at some point when I was making 'Postcards,' it struck me, what the underlying themes for the record would be. It would be about choices, fears and doubts, and it had an existentialist theme to it.
I will watch a ton of movies while I'm writing for inspiration. "Postcards from the Edge" was one. I love the mother-daughter relationship and all the hard humiliating stuff she has to go through. Or thinks she has to go through.
What people fail to realize is that any album we did, really, 90 percent of it reflected the songs people brought in. If someone had brought in two great rock songs for 'Cornerstone'... they would have been on that record.
My father was highbrow: writing long biographies of Dante and stuff like that. Ghostwriting sportsman memoirs? That was sort of the lowest of the low.
Remember that input is as important as output. Take in something for inspiration, to relight the fire inside you, and ideas on how to fix whatever isn't working in your writing will usually follow.
I get out of the taxi and it's probably the only city which in reality looks better than on the postcards, New York.
At the heart of all photography is an urge to express our deepest personal feelings - to reveal our inner, hidden selves, to unlock the artist. Those of us who become photographers are never satisfied with just looking at someone else's expression of something that is dear to us. We must produce our own images, instead of buying postcards and photo books. We seek to make our own statements of individuality.
I think one of the big things that's come out of ghostwriting for me is real compassion for the complexity of fame.
'Postcards' was just a way of slapping myself in the face and saying, 'You can do anything! Just go for it!'
Take the classic experiment of using ordinary feedback: just take the output of something and feed it back into the input. Those of us who do that have had really rich experiences. And it is obvious that that line of experimentation can continue.
Let me get something straight: I have no problem with ghostwriting as a thing unto itself. What bothers me is the way it's shrouded in secrecy, ignored to the point of straight-up lying. Why not be honest?
The border between editing and ghostwriting is, at its extremes, a bit porous. An editor really improves and sometimes restructures a manuscript and suggests changes.