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The coolest ghostwriting blog on the planet.

Another victim from Hawaii.

October 14, 2022June 4, 2026

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Wanted: Someone who works for free.

October 12, 2022June 4, 2026

Interesting. However, none of my writers works for free. And you don’t work for free, either. Can’t help you. Michael McKown Read More...

It’s tough being a writer. You kill several people and you lose your appetite.

August 7, 2022June 4, 2026

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Thoughts while reading a digital pile of screenplays.

August 3, 2022June 4, 2026

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If they don’t have a phone number, tell ’em to get lost.

June 10, 2022June 4, 2026

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The real-life, super immediate critical priority rush wedding toast story.

May 23, 2022June 4, 2026

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Useful advice from a successful screenwriter.

March 9, 2022June 4, 2026

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Three new wedding-related articles are now online.

February 23, 2022June 4, 2026

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The plus-size Jewish redneck lady has died: The ultimate obituary.

December 21, 2021June 4, 2026

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An angry man called me today about an apparent ghostwriting scam.

October 5, 2021June 4, 2026

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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

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

Edward Albee

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

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

C. J. Cherryh

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.”

Neil Gaiman

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

Michael Burke

It always comes down to characters, and individual stories about courage.

Steven Bochco

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

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

Raymond Chandler

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

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.

Jodi Picoult

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.

Harlan Ellison

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Roald Dahl

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

Sidney Sheldon

In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

Will Rogers

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

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

Stephen Wright

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.