Post number one. Hi there!

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.

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

November 4, 2023June 4, 2026

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The descriptive powers of the great John Houseman.

September 27, 2023June 4, 2026

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

July 24, 2023June 4, 2026

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

June 9, 2023June 4, 2026

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

May 18, 2023June 4, 2026

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The last of the three-dot journalists.

April 21, 2023June 4, 2026

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Unmarked graves out past Terlingua

April 6, 2023June 4, 2026

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

February 26, 2023June 4, 2026

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

January 20, 2023June 4, 2026

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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...

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

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

A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.

Joseph Conrad

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

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

Sidney Sheldon

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

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

Stephen King

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

Mickey Spillane

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.

Matthew Arnold

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

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

Lawrence Wray

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

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

Truman Capote Quote

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 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

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

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

E. B. White

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

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

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