Post number one. Hi there!

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Welcome to the Ghostwriters Central blog. This blog will be authored by me, for the time being. We do hope you will find it to be useful, informative or entertaining. Or all three. --Michael McKown.

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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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

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

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

Michael Burke

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

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

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

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

Jim Morrison

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

Lawrence Wray

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Oscar Wilde

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

Jodi Picoult

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

Roald Dahl

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

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

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.

George Singleton

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

Mickey Spillane

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

G.K. Chesterton

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.