Blog

The coolest ghostwriting blog on the planet.

An honest email conversation about dealing with a client who wrote a problematic screenplay.

September 2, 2021June 4, 2026

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It’s time to put on my big boy pants.

August 28, 2021June 4, 2026

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We’ve begun producing our own videos!

July 31, 2021June 4, 2026

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Let’s talk about reputation and integrity.

July 27, 2021June 4, 2026

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A story about the filthiest boxing gym in New York.

April 26, 2021June 4, 2026

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Our new logo. What do you think?

April 2, 2021June 5, 2026

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The real-life word cops: Feds hoping to clarify language.

February 19, 2021June 5, 2026

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Novelists are moving into TV writers’ rooms.

February 11, 2021June 5, 2026

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There’s one wild screenplay awaiting a talented writer.

December 10, 2020June 5, 2026

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An interview with, and a new dark thriller novel by, Eric Shapiro.

October 8, 2020June 5, 2026

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You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

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

M. K. Simmons

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

Stephen Wright

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

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

William Shawn

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

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

Michael Burke

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

C. J. Cherryh

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

Christopher Hampton

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

Lawrence Wray

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

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

It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.

William Goldman

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

E. B. White

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

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

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

Gloria Steinem

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

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

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