Blog

The coolest ghostwriting blog on the planet.

An honest email conversation about dealing with a client who wrote a problematic screenplay.

September 2, 2021June 4, 2026

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It’s time to put on my big boy pants.

August 28, 2021June 4, 2026

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We’ve begun producing our own videos!

July 31, 2021June 4, 2026

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Let’s talk about reputation and integrity.

July 27, 2021June 4, 2026

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A story about the filthiest boxing gym in New York.

April 26, 2021June 4, 2026

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Our new logo. What do you think?

April 2, 2021June 5, 2026

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The real-life word cops: Feds hoping to clarify language.

February 19, 2021June 5, 2026

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Novelists are moving into TV writers’ rooms.

February 11, 2021June 5, 2026

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There’s one wild screenplay awaiting a talented writer.

December 10, 2020June 5, 2026

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An interview with, and a new dark thriller novel by, Eric Shapiro.

October 8, 2020June 5, 2026

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My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.

Ernest Hemingway

I haven’t got 10 rules that guarantee success, though I promise I’d share them if I did. The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process.

J.K. Rowling

It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.

Bob Dylan

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

Jim Morrison

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

Clarence Budington Kelland

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

Orson Scott Card

A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.

Robert McKee

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

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

Romulus Linney

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G.K. Chesterton

The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.

Douglas Adams

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.

Chris Claremont

If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.

William C. Gault

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

Easy reading is damn hard writing.