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Ghostwriting/Developmental Editing

Need great content for your book? We can get your idea in best-selling form.

Writing & Publishing Coaching

Do you need organization, clarity, or just confirmation you are headed in the right direction with your writing? We also evaluate manuscripts and coach writers to help find the best possible presentation of their message.
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Speaking/Training

Do you want to learn how to find your voice, articulate your message, and effectively make it heard? We are teachers at heart. Contact us about our workshops and courses.

Melissa and Rick are a dynamic duo that will absolutely help you produce your best work. From framing a concept into a compelling narrative, to structuring the chapters, editing, writing and supporting authors, their experience, compassion and savvy make all the difference.

Jessica Hartung

Founder, Integrated Work

As a publisher and publishing services company serving both indie authors and other trade publishers, it’s critical to find writing and editorial partners that are professional, cool under pressure, and responsive to the needs of clients. Killian Creative checks off all three of these boxes. We worked with Rick in serving a client on a tight-turn revision schedule for a novel, and he was a complete pro every step of the way, translating the client’s requests into solid prose on the page. I’m glad to work with Rick and recommend Killian Creative to others looking for professional writing and editorial services.

Matt West

Founder and CEO, Dexterity Books

Rick and Melissa are a truly dynamic team! Their combined creative writing and editing abilities are second to none. They have a unique ability to find the voice of each author and express ideas consistent with each author’s style and personality. 

Ronda Ranalli

Former Director of Content and Author Relations, Destiny Image Publishers

Rick is both an accomplished writer and editor—and in the publishing world, people with both competencies are rare animals indeed. When I’m in need of a great writer or book doctor, “Killian” comes first to mind.

Kyle Duncan

Writer in Residence, The Fedd Agency

Working with the Killians was a joy for me. My book was so personal and to be comfortable enough with them to be open and honest with the pain in my life made this journey a successful one for me. They are professional, thorough, detailed, and most important—kind.

Staci Boyer

Founder and CEO, Motiv8n'U Personal Training & Wellness Coaching

I was a reluctant writer! Rick coached me into a love and confidence of writing that has made the whole experience enjoyable. Rick’s ability to preserve your thoughts and stories while adding an easy reading style and ordering the material to best flow for the reader is something I could not have done without him.

Jon Petersen

Founder and CEO, CityForce

All our experiences with Rick have been great. He’s easy to work with. His research is outstanding, and he masterfully incorporates it into his writing.

David Horton

Former Vice President of Editorial, Bethany House Publishers

Recent Blog Posts

Read our most popular thoughts on writing, publishing, and whatever inspires us.

I have advice for people who want to write.
I don’t care whether they’re 5 or 500.
There are three things that are important:

First,
if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair.

    And second,
you need to read. You can’t be a writer if you’re not a reader. It’s the great writers who teach us how to write.

   The third thing
is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it’s for only half an hour—write, write, write.

   ―Madeleine L’Engle

Read more

Three things…

I have advice for people who want to write. I don’t care whether they’re 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what...

read more

Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun.
Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.

—Steven King

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Where good stories come from…

Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come...

read more

It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Wendell Berry

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The mind that is not baffled is not employed…

It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. Wendell Berry

read more
The Art of Essaying

The Art of Essaying

The word essay comes from French for “to try.” Many, perhaps because of getting assigned lame essays in high school (though none of my teacher friends do that, thank God! 🙂 ), think of essay writing as a tedious rehashings of things we’ve already learned. However,...

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If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories—science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.

Ray Bradbury

Read more

And out of that love, remake a world…

If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights...

read more

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