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The coolest ghostwriting blog on the planet.

What screenwriters get wrong about dialogue.

March 14, 2026March 14, 2026

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Why independent thinking matters to writers.

March 13, 2026March 13, 2026

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How desktop publishing put a Linotronic Imagesetter in my office.

March 12, 2026March 13, 2026

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The late-night drunk caller.

March 11, 2026March 13, 2026

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Screening ghostwriters: Run a simple test.

December 27, 2025December 27, 2025

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

November 20, 2025

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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

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Hire a non-fiction ghostwriter

August 25, 2025October 9, 2025

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The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

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

Michael Burke

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

Lisa See

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Robert Benchley

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

No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.

Thomas Wolfe

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.

Anton Chekhov

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

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

G.K. Chesterton

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

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

Lawrence Wray

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

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

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

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 is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

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

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

Joseph Conrad

Stories are never too long or too short. They’re too interesting or too boring.

William Shawn

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.”