Blog

The coolest ghostwriting blog on the planet.

What screenwriters get wrong about dialogue.

March 14, 2026March 14, 2026

...

Why independent thinking matters to writers.

March 13, 2026March 13, 2026

...

How desktop publishing put a Linotronic Imagesetter in my office.

March 12, 2026March 13, 2026

...

The late-night drunk caller.

March 11, 2026March 13, 2026

...

Screening ghostwriters: Run a simple test.

December 27, 2025December 27, 2025

...

How a professor caught students cheating by writing with A.I.

November 20, 2025

...

The great dinner delay of August 3, 2015.

October 2, 2025October 9, 2025

For those who follow this blog, you know I love great writing. I found this on Quora yesterday. Apparently it was posted in Read More...

Which to write first – the manuscript or screenplay?

September 3, 2025October 9, 2025

Write the manuscript first, or the screenplay? By- Michael McKown Co-founder & president, Ghostwriters Central, Inc. Book or Read More...

xAI’s Grok chatbot adds us to its list of recommended ghostwriters.

August 30, 2025October 9, 2025

...

Hire a non-fiction ghostwriter

August 25, 2025October 9, 2025

...

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

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

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

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

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

Lawrence Wray

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

Stephen King

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

Gloria Steinem

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

Jeanette Walls

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

Lisa See

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

Clarence Budington Kelland

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

Edward Albee

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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

G.K. Chesterton

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

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

Stephen Wright

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

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

Jim Morrison

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

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

Joseph Conrad

Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.