— A Memoir of the Craft is an engaging read. It is part autobiography, part instruction manual, but mostly a writer talking about his love of writing and how intrinsic a part of his life his writing has always been.As he outlines what he thinks all writers should do — devote hours every day to their craft (his daily quota is 2000 words, but that might be difficult for those of us with day jobs), read, read, and read some more (he doesn't watch much television and reads a lot), and not worry too much about the critics:
I spent a good many years since — too many, I think - being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.
King can write as engagingly about his growing up with his mother and brother as he can effortlessly sketch out memorable characters in his popular novels. He began writing at an early age, and submitting stories, too. He combined a love of pulp novels and fantasy and horror stories and movies with an insatiable appetite to read all genres.
He is unstinting in his look at his own battles with pills and alcohol, and how that featured in books like The Shining and Misery. He also details the harrowing accident he had in 1999 and its subsequent recovery period, when he was a victim of a hit and run. He writes in such a practical manner that you almost forget how much of his work deals with things out of the ordinary. That may be the key to his success, his blending of the natural and supernatural. His prose may be basic, but it is smart and funny as well:
I don't want to speak too disparagingly of my generation (actually I do, we had a chance to change the world and opted for the Home Shopping Network instead) ...Fans of King's writing will get some nice anecdotes about the origins of characters Carrie White and Annie Wilkes.
Annie was coke, Annie was booze, and I decided I was tired of being Annie's pet writer. ... The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time. ... Substance-abusing writers are just substance abusers - common garden-variety drunks and druggies, in other words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit.It helps if you have read his books, but it isn't strictly necessary, as he writes about writing and inspiration and the hard work behind his prolific output. He writes mainly with the aspiring or practicing fiction writer in mind, but I would think that his no-nonsense advice would help any writer. I'm sure it's helped me. His identification of common traps that bad writers fall into may be beneficial for readers as well as writers. He's a huge fan of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style
. I'll never think of adverbs the same way again after reading On Writing.What I also really like about On Writing is his booklist by other authors — books that he has enjoyed. Who doesn't like a suggested reading list? It's fun to see shared favorites, like Paul Bowles's The Sheltering Sky, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and J.K Rowling's first three Harry Potter novels, as well as to-read books by favorite authors like T. Coraghessan Boyle, Ruth Rendell and Michael Chabon, and a host of other books and authors to check out.
As much as he talks about his own work, he doesn't overtoot his own horn. I haven't read a ton of Stephen King. I grew up reading more of the mystery genre than horror. But the ones I have read I've liked very much — The Stand
is a great book. I also enjoyed 'Salem's Lot
and The Girls Who Loved Tom Gordon
, a very recent read. I read Carrie a long time ago, when a group of girls was passing it around in my high school civics class — pretty appropriate setting, huh? I've been avoiding The Dark Tower
series, but now may have to give it a try.... put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around.On Writing doesn't just make me want to polish up my writing (and beware of over-adverbiage), but, as I'm sure King would be happy to hear, makes me want to read more, because for Stephen King, the reader and the writer are inextricably linked.
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