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The other day I was cleaning out my room and found an old stack of books in the back of my closet, all of them long forgotten and most only half-read. I flipped through them, stopping on an unassuming, small paperback I hadn’t read in years. On the cover, sat next to a computer better suited for a museum than an actual office, was a black and white portrait of Stephen King.
On Writing: A Memoire of the Craft is hands down one of my favorite works King has written to date. Being part autobiography and part tricks of the trade, On Writing reads more like a love letter to the craft than a “how-to” novel. Lending it a beautiful memoir for those who both love writing or just love him.
If you’re looking for a go-to book on how to become a successful novelist, something that outlines the few secrets to writing easy, popular books, well, this isn’t that. In fact, my favorite piece of advice King gives on becoming a writer is simply just to read and write more.
“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.”
Stephen King doesn’t have to be your favorite writer, nor does horror have to be your favorite genre for you to appreciate this book. It’s filled with personal anecdotes (Like the time he was run over by a car in 1999) and rather frank advice (reference the above quote) that blend smoothly into a novel much greater than the sum of its parts.
There are few living authors with a bibliography as large as his and even fewer authors who have gained such a vast wealth from said novels (don’t believe me? Google his net worth). It’s not just traditional success, but the influence King has had on a generation of new writers, storytellers, and horror fans, that makes this memoir worthwhile. His gentle, kind tones shed the skin of a celebrity worth almost half a billion dollars and presents just an ordinary man, one you could find sat writing at a cluttered desk next to an out of date computer, much like the cover I dusted off in the back of my closet.
As always, whether you’re reading On Writing for the very first time, or you have before, we’d love to hear your thoughts! So give us a shout down below of over on our Twitter or Instagram!
I just finished reading this book for the first time and am still basking in its light!.
Here’s my summary in case you are curious what was most impactful to me.
https://airak1.com/2020/06/08/book-blog-on-writing-by-stephen-king/