Welcome to the Ghostwriters Central blog. This blog will be authored by me, for the time being. We do hope you will find it to be useful, informative or entertaining. Or all three. –Michael McKown.
When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”
Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.
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.
You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.
If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.
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.
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.
No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.
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.
Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.