Book Review, Summary, Highlights, and Quotes from On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft by Stephen King
I had this book sitting in my “next up” pile for quite some time. I think I was mostly afraid of reading it because I don’t feel like the same type of writer as Stephen King (obviously), and well, writing a book seems so daunting, AND this guy is just prolific.
On top of that, I am not really a Stephen King fan. The only book I have read by him was 11/22/63, which was awesome, but I haven’t delved any further than that.
Well, it turns out there was nothing to be afraid of, because this book was fantastic!
The first 100 pages or so of On Writing is actually more of an autobiography and pageturner.
Stephen fills the first part of the book up with lots of interesting little stories and tidbits that explain how he became fascinated with horror, the horror genre, and how he came to be such a prolific and fantastic writer.
The book also has some great lessons on failure and rejection, as Stephen would literally take rejection letters from magazines for story submissions and tack them to his wall with a spike when he was getting started.
The guy had so many rejections and didn’t care. He just kept going. He continued with the thing he loved, and it shows how only failure can lead you to true success.
The next phase of the book is about how Stephen King writes — which is very similar to Jerry Seinfeld’s in that he just works.
He just works. He writes and has a rule to write at least ten pages a day.
Once he’s done, he is done, but he must write those ten pages.
His theory is that good stories don’t just happen (though sometimes it does), but they take work. And Carrie, his big break, is a great example of that.
He also talks specifics on brevity, formatting, grammar, and also dives into the publishing process.
And finally, the last section of the book is written after he was run over by a car in 1999 while writing this book and covers his grueling recovery and some of the aftermath.
All in all, this makes for a really fantastic book that will be enjoyable even to those who never care to write their own.
AR Score: 8 out of 10
Best Quotes from On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft
Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
I have 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. I’m not editorializing, just trying to give you the facts as I see them.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
The idea that the creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
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: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair — the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colorful. If you hesitate and cogitate, you will come up with another word — of course you will, there’s always another word—but it probably won’t be as good as your first one, or as close to what you really mean
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
If you don’t want to work your ass off, you have no business trying to write well—settle back into competency and be grateful you have even that much to fall back on.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
I would argue that the paragraph, not the sentence, is the basic unit of writing — the place where coherence begins and words stand a chance of becoming more than mere words.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
If you want to become 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.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
The sort of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate—four to six hours a day, every day—will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things and have an aptitude for them.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
Writing is at its best—always, always, always—when it is a kind of inspired play for the writer.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind—they begin to seem like characters instead of real people. The tale’s narrative cutting edge starts to rust and I begin to lose my hold on the story’s plot and pace. Worst of all, the excitement of spinning something new beins to fade. The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
I like to get to ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book—something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
You need the room, you need the door, and you need the determination to shut the door. You need a concrete goal, as well. […] Don’t wait for the muse.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
Every story and novel is collapsible to some degree. If you can’t get out ten per cent of it while retaining the basic story and flavor, you’re not trying very hard.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
I’ve found that any day’s routine interruptions and distractions don’t much hurt a work in progress and may actually help it in some ways.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
You don’t need writing classes or seminars any more than you need this or any other book on writing.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
I have a lot of self-doubts. I think the best thing to do, when I really run into trouble, is remember the saying “Hard writing makes for easy reading.”
– On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft — Stephen King
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