BOOK: On Writing - Stephen King (2000)

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King

Well, up until Insomnia, I think I read practically everything that Stephen King wrote.  It was an easy gift for me. Simply buy the latest hardcover by Mr. King and put a bow on it and I was happy as can be at Christmas and my birthday.

So, I missed On Writing when it came out.  I knew it was there.  I saw it along with Rose Madder and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and all those other volumes he regularly released.  But for whatever reason, I had given up on him.  I started feeling cynical about his novels.  Maybe it was Gerald's Game.  If you've read it, you know what I mean.  I think the wheels started coming off for me with Christine, but I kept on for another decade.  This meant that when On Writing came out, I ignored it.

I am a stupid stupid man.

Mr. King is at his conversational best.  The first half of the book is a memoir, intended to show us some of his experiences that led him to be the writer that he is.  After this, he breaks down his take on writing.

If you read nothing else in this book, read the section, about five pages long, called What Writing Is.  If you read that and still find that you have to convince yourself to write or that you only want to write for the fame and fortune, then, well, as Mr. King puts it, "...close the book and go do something else."

I can't think of any book more practical for coaching on the topic of writing than this one.  The Elements of Style remains the important handbook that everyone should own.  Books like Bird by Bird and Writing Down the Bones serve as wonderful inspiration, but Stephen King has given us the ultimate coaching lessons.  Read, write, edit, and repeat.  Write because you want to and have to, but work at doing it the right way.

This book should be in every writer's library.

EDIT: In December, I read and commented on Stephen King's essay On Impact.  This essay is what led me to break down and read On Writing.  Most of the essay is included in On Writing, it was, after all, one of the books that Mr. King was writing when he went for his fateful walk.