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

08 Oct, 2020

"Red Dennis," Eric Shapiro's new novel, is out. I haven't read it yet but the reviews are excellent, which isn't news to me. Eric and I co-founded Ghostwriters Central in 2002. We were partners for some 15 years. While we had this business together, he did an astonishing amount of writing, so I can assure you Red Dennis won't disappoint. He's a passionate and supremely capable writer. Stanley Wheeler interviewed Eric recently. One of his other books, designed to motivate writers to write, is "Ass Plus Seat." What a great title. Sit down and freakin' write. LOL Read Mr. Wheeler's interview with Eric Shapiro here. Best wishes, Eric.

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

October 8, 2020May 9, 2025

“Red Dennis,” Eric Shapiro’s new novel, is out. I haven’t read it yet but the reviews are excellent, which Read More...

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

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

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

Jeanette Walls

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.

George Singleton

I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert A. Heinlein

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

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

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 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

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

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

John Irving

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

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.

Gloria Steinem

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

It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.