Tag: ghostwriter

The Written Word: Engaged(ing) rather than “to-be-married”

January 6, 2026
cat looking at fish

Great writing is immediately recognizable. Well-written content is like the “no explanation needed” photo shown above – the audience is immediately drawn in.

I – like any other writer – am happy to acknowledge writers who come up with great eye-catching phrases to draw in an audience:

My cat Snoopy (shown above) rightfully earned his full name: Snoopy Grumpy Monkey Monster. When I would hold him, he would purr as I would sing his own personal jingle to him: “Snoopy Grumpy Monkey Monster, Monster Boy. Snoopy is one Monster Boy.” He knew that this was his own personal song. Humans smile at the rhymed humor.

When people go looking for a writing consultant (such as myself), they may or may not have the words to articulate what they’d like to receive for a final product, though they’ll “know it” if they receive good written content. Quality writing has an artful blend of the following:

  • A mix of great phraseology (such as that shown above)
  • An ability to explain ideas cogently on paper (i.e. Clarity from “The 4 C’s” of journalism combined with an ability to bring forth “interesting readability” (engaging, insightful)
  • Good writing mechanics – the ability to be concise, etc.
  • An understanding of how much descriptive color and explanatory context to bring to the page to make ideas relevant to the reader (i.e., the reader would take less interest in the phrase “Snoopy Grumpy Monkey Monster” without having first seen a photo of a mischievous, good-looking cat “in action” to associate with the entertaining nick name)……

Burkhardt Writing Services would like to hear from you about your wordsmith needs. We just might be the writing consultant you are seeking.

~

Kim Burkhardt provides writing services – including ghostwriting, “corporate storytelling,” articles, how-to manuals, and editing – at Burkhardt Writing Services. Contact us about your wordsmithing and storytelling needs.

The written word: how we present ourselves matters

December 30, 2025
leather bound book
Book with leather cover

Why work with a contract writer-for-hire?

Most of us learn during high school or college that how we dress for a job interview can impact whether we get the job.  How we present ourselves matters. “Dress for success.”

Several years ago, I was dealing with a serious illness and was getting bounced from one medical specialist to the next (appointments initially started with “We don’t know what medical condition you have” and then moved into “We don’t know how to treat this”).    I considered that appearance matters; I took to dressing well for medical appointments to be taken seriously (i.e., “This woman looks important – we need to put in a serious effort to resolve her medical issue.”).   (Side note: it was my cat’s veterinarian who finally came up with a treatment plan. There was no way to see that coming!)

How we present ourselves on paper also matters.  People judge us via the written word just as much as they judge us by how we dress.  How many times have you read something and wondered, “What was that person trying to say?”  Or, “Was that person asleep in their high school writing class?”  Likewise, readers also judge you by how you present yourself on paper.  Your ability to develop and artfully articulate ideas on paper – or not! – makes an impression.  Most people want the impression they convey to be positive.   “Write for success.”

Consider an example of how people present themselves on paper.   During an earlier stage of my life, I would wonder how famously busy people – politicians, actors, etc. – found time to write their memoirs.  Today, there’s an increasing willingness for well-known people to acknowledge using ghostwriters, researchers, editors, etc. for their memoirs.    Just this year, my mother gave me Bill Gate’s memoir – Source Code /> My Beginnings (published in 2025) – as a Christmas gift.  Bill openly acknowledges in his book – by name – the wordsmiths, researchers, editors, friends and relatives, former teachers, etc. who helped bring his memoir to print.  He only has so many hours in a day and writing may or may not “be his thing” – yet, he wanted his memoir to be presented well.    He was variously present during the memoir’s development process – his “writing support team” helped turn his concept of a published memoir into a book worth sending to a publisher and sharing with the public.

Everyone can consider that how we – including you – present ourselves on paper matters.

Those of us who write professionally know how to present you – and your ideas – successfully.   Working with a professional writer means that you can spend your time and energy “doing what you do” while being confident that we writers will competently present your written ideas “for success.”  If you want your ideas to be taken seriously, present them in way that will be taken seriously.  How you present yourself and your ideas matters.  

“Yes, but I don’t have Bill Gates’ budget.”  Yes, well….. Your ideas will be taken seriously if they are presented in a manner that people take seriously.   Present for success.

Kim Burkhardt provides writing services – including ghostwriting, “corporate storytelling,” articles, how-to manuals, and editing – at Burkhardt Writing Services. Contact us about your wordsmithing and storytelling needs.

Writer reflection: could you write this photo?

December 20, 2025
Seattle skyline at night
Seattle Skyline

Seattle has joined the ranks of high-traffic-congestion cities.

When I need to drive anywhere, I look for opportunities to go at times when traffic is likely to be less congested. Last fall, for example, I was commuting to a job that had some flexibility in terms of start times. So, I would leave home at about 6:45 am.

Leaving home at 6:45 am shares something in common with being a writer. Opportunities.

Nearly every situation has some kind of opportunity embedded within it. It’s up to us to find it.

In the case of an early morning commute – before daylight – I spotted the opportunity to take a night-time photo of the Seattle skyline – complete with the iconic Space Needle and Lake Union. People like this photo.

As writers, our writing is likewise well received when we bring appreciable observations to the written page. It is up to us to make insightful observations and find interesting ways to bring them to print.

I was able to bring viewers the photo above by moving beyond the snap-and-shoot mechanics of photography. I had learned what constitutes a good photo – identifying a visually interesting scene and learning how to frame it well with a camera’s lens. I did back flips – of sorts – to find a place to safely pull over to take this photo.

Writing – like photography – “comes to light” when we move beyond basic writing mechanics: “I saw downtown Seattle at night. You would find the scene beautiful if you saw it.” Rather, “Downtown Seattle’s skyline quite literally lights up at night. Anyone who finds themself driving southbound on I-5 at night takes in the collective beauty of hilltop business district towers and shoreline buildings left alight to ward off would-be intruders. Those who have read Katherine Kurtz’s novel St. Patrick’s Gargoyle can – when seeing downtown Seattle’s night time skyline – imagine a monthly gargoyle conclave in Seattle to protect the city equivalent to Dublin’s gargoyle conclaves. Quite striking.” (A personal aside that I would happily work in to a longer article with an opportunity for individual reflection: Dublin is located in the Emerald Isle, while Seattle is the Emerald City…. I had a memorable flight in 2018 in which I watched the sun rise in Dublin and set in Seattle….).

Being a writer is clearly more than mechanically stringing together words. Writing involves observation about the world around us, an understanding of what people want or need to think about, and an ability to bring all of that to the page in readable language. For each type of written publication, there are also genre-specific writing considerations – creativity is needed when writing novels, an ability to be factual and insightful is needed for business publications, an ability to be factually descriptive is necessary when writing how-to manuals, etc.

Kim Burkhardt provides writing services – including ghostwriting, “corporate storytelling,” articles, how-to manuals, and editing – at Burkhardt Writing Services. Contact us about your wordsmithing and storytelling needs.

Writer’s approaches to developing written content

December 16, 2025

Last week, the Textbook & Academic Authors Association published a helpful blog post directed at new (or newish) writers about dealing with a blank screen. The blog post is worth reading.

If you are a writer, what is your writing methodology?

I have several approaches to putting words to paper. Each has a time and place:

  • When I wrote my first book, Competitive Intelligence Workbook (2001), I was seeking a way to “make a name for myself” as a market research consultant. I scanned the existing literature about competitive intelligence to identify what type of book hadn’t been written. I identified that there was no book about how to organize and present competitive intelligence data. So, I wrote such a book. I thought through what types of competitor data needs to be collected by competitive intelligence (CI) professionals and created topical charts that could be populated as data is collected with the end goal of analyzing and presenting data as it is collected. The books’ purpose dictated the writing process. The book served a need; therefore, I made a profit on that book.
  • In another instance, I found a distant cousin who had been doing family genealogy for twenty years. He hadn’t organized the data he had collected into a centralized format. When relatives would ask him for family history data, he would – in each case – share information on a piece-by-piece basis. I wanted to save him time and effort of continuing to repeat this process with additional relatives, so I started organizing the data he had collected into a single repository. As I worked through this process, I saw the opportunity to take linear, timeline data and incorporate a narrative discussion into the mix. “Here’s why our ancestors were living in this location during X time period.” “This relative was able to move from job to job during the 1860’s because Ireland’s new railroad system was emerging to allow easier travel” (this was before automobiles). As I contacted other relatives, they shared family stories, old photographs, historical family letters that had been kept – all of this was added to “bring the family history to life” in a genealogy book that is now appreciated in the homes of numerous relatives.
  • Sometimes, I write creatively – inserting ideas into a document as the creative process unfolds. In these cases, I write in a rather free-style approach and then find ways to make all of the various ideas readable in a collective document.
  • When I write something short – such as an email – I think about what the recipient needs to know and how I can present the information succinctly and in a readable manner. I want to hold their attention. I focus on sharing (or requesting) information – get to the point and keep it simple. When I write an article, I consider how to write informatively and to-the-point using a style that is engaging, and authoritative.

I always think about the reader when I write. What does the reader likely to already know about a topic? What does the reader need to know (that’s what I need to write!)? What writing format and style is going to hold the reader’s attention? A facts-and-figures document is going to be written very differently than a novel or a humorous anecdote for a news story. Always: “Is what I’m writing readable? Why and how? How can I improve this document?” Making text readable is the responsibility of the writer – it’s not the job of the reader to figure out what the writer meant!

Kim Burkhardt provides writing services – including ghostwriting, “corporate storytelling,” articles, how-to manuals, and editing – at Burkhardt Writing Services. Contact us about your wordsmithing and storytelling needs.