My Weekend Book Review - Stephen King "On Writing"

I want to write this as quickly as possible out of fear that I will forget all the emotionally driven words that came to mind while reading “On Writing” by Stephen King. I literally just put the book down, and I am satisfied with the result. So here we go:

At times while reading, I felt as though I was sitting in front of Mr. King having a conversation with him. I will admit that I have never read any of his work, only watched the movies that stemmed from his writing. Being from Maine, I have always known a lot about him through his work with the community. I will be picking up his books because of this book. I enjoy knowing more about his thought process during the writing of his books.

I have never been much of a fan of horror, but I am inspired, so horror books will now be on my list of things to read. The writing tips within the book are priceless. As someone who writes out of pure enjoyment, I found it offered a tremendous amount of common sense advice.  I say common sense, because when reading it, I found myself smacking my forehead and saying, “of course, that makes sense!”

Here are a few points that I enjoyed.

·         Do not stop a piece of work just because it is hard. 

·         “Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around” (p94).

·         Fear is the root of bad writing. Let go of the fear!

This is only a small percentage of what I got out of the book, but I relate to them because they are the issues that I am having right now with my writing.

I recommend that you read this book if you have not already. It inspired me to continue with my craft, and not give up! I make many errors within my writing that would drive Mr. King crazy. It is okay, I am working on it!     

For the record, my first draft was a lot longer than this. I used his formula and cut it down 10%. J