Because every
story begins
with words

video screenwriting ghostwriter has an ethics problem

Video: A screenwriting ghostwriter has an ethics problem.

Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.

Sherman Reilly Duffy

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

Stephen King

If the sex scene doesn’t make you want to do it — whatever it is they’re doing — it hasn’t been written right.

Sloan Wilson

If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.

Dan Poynter

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

Mickey Spillane

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

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

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.

M. K. Simmons

Don’t annoy an author, you’ll end up in their book and you won’t look good.

Lawrence Wray

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

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

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

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 do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

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

Jim Morrison

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

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

Lisa See