Blog

Our ghostwriting blog posts.

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Eight new writers have joined our staff. Would you like to know how I found them?

February 4, 2018February 5, 2018

Eight new writers have been added to the staff. And they are exceptional in every way. We’ve got everything covered, from books Read More...

The sad tale of the applicant writer who didn’t make the cut.

January 17, 2018January 17, 2018

I’ve been reading a lot of book excerpts, screenplay pages, short stories, poems and lyrics lately. I’m evaluating writers Read More...

The raw power of a well-crafted description.

January 15, 2018July 21, 2023

I do love great writing. This is a paragraph from a short story by Kevin Hall. Topic is the young man’s first job as an intern in Read More...

Sportswriters are accustomed to describing brilliant, seemingly-impossible plays. But what do they do when the play they’ve just witnessed is “impossible-r?”

January 15, 2018January 15, 2018

I love watching football, especially on a really big-screen TV. And I love great writing. Sports writing is a challenge. Describing Read More...

Lots of changes around here lately.

January 12, 2018January 12, 2018

I’m reconfiguring Ghostwriters Central. The first change was to bring Kate Jonez on board. She’s a marvelous writer, Read More...

It’s all about the writing. Here’s an example of a four-page first chapter that left me panting for more!

November 24, 2017July 21, 2023

I’m the point of initial contact with prospective clients and many of these callers want to tell me the story they’ve got Read More...

Old Lou came into the writing class, dumped a pile of notebooks and pencils on a table then startled everyone with a world-class way to start a story.

October 26, 2017October 26, 2017

Lee Smith is a writer who hails from Grundy, Virginia, down in the southwest corner of the state. She grew up in that isolated coal Read More...

A prospective client said nobody will accept payments. I said we often do!

October 12, 2017December 13, 2017

I received a call from a prospective client a few days ago. He said he had called many ghostwriters before finally trying us. We Read More...

Pauline at Barnes & Noble reportedly said: THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS!

September 17, 2017

Can you use a good laugh? David Thorne is an Australian writer, humorist and satirist. I think he’s a really funny guy. Read More...

A late-night LA car chase, nine police cars, a dog, a helicopter, a reporter and a gas problem.

September 9, 2017February 5, 2018

I live in the Los Angeles area and LA is notorious for its cop chases. There was one last night. Coverage began on the local CBS Read More...

If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

Stan Lee

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 do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

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

Joseph Conrad

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

Matthew Arnold

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

John Irving

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

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

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

Stephen King

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

Orson Scott Card

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

It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.

Bob Dylan

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

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

William Shawn

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

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

Mickey Spillane

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil, trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

William Faulkner

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.

Michael Crichton

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