Stephen King On Writing: A Must Read

"Your time is valuable and so is mine, and we both understand that the hours we spend talking about writing is time we don't spend actually doing it," says Stephen King is his book On Writing. King believes in telling the truth in writing, and he tells a hard truth to writers. There are no "magic secrets of writing," he reveals.If you want to be an author, you must write! 

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut," advises King. He reads 70-80 books a year. In case you weren't a math major or your cell phone calculator isn't handy, that's more than a book a week, or, more precisely, a book every four to five days. King is a fiction writer, so he's probably reading the books from start to finish to get the whole story. That's not how I usually read.

Nonfiction readers, like me, are probably more like bees, buzzing around from one flower or book to the next to catch a chapter, coming back again later to read another one. My books are like good friends and I keep them in every room of my home. I go hang out with them when I'm looking for some encouragement or counsel.

If I'm looking for some advice on article writing, I'll go to the bookshelves where my writing books live. I'll fish through, looking at the titles until I find a few good prospects. I appreciate a good table of contents and index in a book. It helps me find what I'm looking for. If I need business advice, I go to those shelves and do the same. If I've already read the book, I can go to my own notes I've written in the first or last blank pages of the book. I learned this note-taking strategy from John Maxwell. This is a great way to create your own personal index of the best quotes and ideas you got out of the book.

That's just what I did with King's book On Writing. Here are some of the best thoughts I got out of the book:

• Question: What should you write about? Answer: Whatever you love to read. What you know makes you unique. Write about it.
• "The scariest moment is always just before you start," King says of writing.
• There is no ideal writing environment. Don't wait until you have time to go to a conference or stay at a writing colony. Don't wait until after you've taken another writing course. There is no perfect time or place to write. King believes that the interruptions from family members can be used as material in your own works.
• You can read anywhere, but it's important to have a stable writing place with a door that stays closed until your daily writing goals are met. Music is also a good way of shutting the world out.
• "Writers form themselves into a pyramid," he says, "at the bottom are the bad ones. Above them is a group which is slightly smaller but still large and welcoming; these are the competent writers," and he continues on, "The next level is much smaller. These are the really good writers."
• People who buy books are looking for a good story they can read on the airplane--something that echoes of his or her own life.
• Description begins with what you want the reader to experience.
• When asked how he writes, King replies, "one word at a time."
• If you write around 2,000 words a day, you can write 180,000 words in 3 months. A book draft shouldn't take any longer than a season.
• "If there's one thing I love about writing more than the rest, it's that sudden flash of insight when you see how everything connects."
• Ask four or five people who are "Ideal Readers" of your works to read your drafts and give you their opinion. It's much better to get opinions before the book is published.
• "The job boils down to two things: paying attention to how the real people around you behave and then telling the truth about what you see."
• Rejection is part of the process. "By the time I was fourteen (and shaving twice a week whether I needed to or not) the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it."

 Stephen King

Although I read The Stand many years ago, I never read another book from King until he wrote On Writing. "Writing is magic," says King, where "writer and reader are participating together in a kind of miracle." King is a master writer. I just don't happen to be one of his "ideal readers" since I'm not much interested in fiction scary stuff. He is my friend, however, and On Writing holds a special place in the "K" section among my other writing books.

King mentions that he hopes to meet George Orwell in the afterlife to ask him a question about Animal Farm. I hope I have the chance to meet King in this life to ask him a question or two, and thank him for all his great advice on writing.

"Lift out the top layer of your toolbox--your vocabulary and all the grammar stuff. On the layer beneath go those elements of style." If you don't already have a King book in your collection, start today with On Writing or one of the other books King recommends.

• Elements of Style by Strunk & White
• Literary Market Place
• Writer's Market

You've just done some reading, so now it's time to order one of these great books, or get back to your writing!