Blog

The coolest ghostwriting blog on the planet.

An alleged SEO expert emailed me. This is what followed.

November 4, 2023June 4, 2026

...

The descriptive powers of the great John Houseman.

September 27, 2023June 4, 2026

...

The A.I. bot says: “Get out of the chair. Go have a drink. I’ll do the writing.”

July 24, 2023June 4, 2026

...

The U.S. editor-in-chief of TechRadar.com tries to get ChatGPT to write a screenplay.

June 9, 2023June 4, 2026

...

“And no one can talk to a horse of course.” Wrong!

May 18, 2023June 4, 2026

...

The last of the three-dot journalists.

April 21, 2023June 4, 2026

...

Unmarked graves out past Terlingua

April 6, 2023June 4, 2026

...

Words + emotion + lies = propaganda. Meet Joseph Goebbels.

February 26, 2023June 4, 2026

...

What the boss does for fun. Buckle up. Yee-haw!

January 20, 2023June 4, 2026

...

This is really what it’s like to be an editor.

December 30, 2022June 4, 2026

I came across this comical image while searching for a photo to illustrate our new page on editing and proofreading services. It Read More...

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

There are three primal urges in human beings: Food, sex, and rewriting someone else’s play.

Romulus Linney

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

Clarence Budington Kelland

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Robert Benchley

Ever heard of a carpenter not going to work because he has “carpenter’s block”? If a writer can’t write, it’s because he doesn’t really want to, he isn’t ready to get it on paper or he’s just plain lazy.

Chet Cunningham

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God.

Sidney Sheldon

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

Anton Chekhov

A writer is a world trapped in a person.

Victor Hugo

Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice.

Stephen King

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally, I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.

Alice Munro

The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

John Campbell

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.

John Legend

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

Will Rogers

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

Mickey Spillane

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.