Book #71: On Writing

Book #71: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

January 27, 2014


Right now, the wind is howling at frightful speeds, as I sit here and look forward to yet another day off from work tomorrow. It's kind of funny, even though this is the fourth "snow day" we've had this year, none of them have actually been caused by snow. The first was for freezing rain; two others earlier this month for temperature, and I think that the very low temps expected for tomorrow are the reason for my impromptu three-day weekend. Apparently my district has set aside NO snow days this year, so I'm looking at being at work well into June. Oh, well. Summer runs kind of long for me, anyway, and I was kind of keeping my fingers crossed for a day off tomorrow. I'll probably still have my first session of my writing course tomorrow night, so I can spend some time tomorrow during the day making sure that I'm prepared.

So obviously, I read this book for said course. It was actually on a list of like five books on writing; naturally I chose to read the one by Stephen King. As I've mentioned in other posts, I think he's brilliant, so of course reading his take on writing, his approaches to it and his advice for any aspiring creative writer, was a special treat for me. I enjoy reading King when he's simply writing as himself. He used to (maybe still does?) write a regular column for Entertainment Weekly, and while I, as a senior in high school, was confused about why a horror writer would be consulted about popular culture, I found his commentaries entertaining. He maintains that same jocularity, the same personable tone, with this work. It was started before, and finished after, the infamous accident in 1999, when King was struck by a van while walking on a quiet Maine highway. He even writes about his experiences recovering from the accident...pretty gruesome. He's able to tie that in with his love of writing; how writing again helped to bring him out of his pain as his legs were healing. That's pretty admirable.

King is not a snob when it comes to literature or writing. He differentiates between "good" writing and "bad" writing, even using some published examples. But he judges a work on the quality of the writing itself, not on whether its trying to tell a profound story or whatever. Certainly this attitude shouldn't be surprising. In his works, his characters are often ordinary, everyday Americans. That's what I love most about his writing, the characters. He advises would-be fiction writers not to focus on plot when writing a story, but to take a situation and add characters...the plot takes care of itself.

I've dabbled in some creative writing. Nothing that I'm very proud of, though when I've shared my work, I've gotten positive feedback. I agree with King's advice about putting aside a completed first draft for several weeks and coming back to it with fresh eyes. When I've looked back on work that I've written not too long ago, I'm not exactly proud. But there are times when I'm like, "Wow, that sounded all right...I'm not horrible at this." I used to dream of being a famous writer when I was a kid, but that dream faded away a long time ago. I'm a competent writer, to be sure. I always have been, and I attribute that to the fact that I've always (excepting my teens, for the most part) read a lot. Even as a teen I probably read more than most of my peers, but not nearly as much as I did as a young child, or as I do currently. King advises writers to watch little TV, and to read instead; this is very, very good advice. I must say.

Certainly, if I were to embark on a serious writing endeavor (and hell, maybe I might at some point), I probably wouldn't do things exactly as King laid them out. But then, in this book, he never tried to sound like he knew-it-all. Well, you can't say he doesn't know his shit; after all, he's published many books, and has been enormously successful. He's modest about his success, mostly. He's in love with his own cleverness at times, which is an attribute that I usually can't stand in writers, but he's so open, so dorky, that you know he's not taking himself too seriously. I feel like Stephen King, having had the experiences he's had, isn't just wise about writing, but that he has the right attitude about life as well. I think I'm a bigger fan of his now after reading this.

Now, when thinking about how I would apply King's advice to my teaching of writing, I don't have as much to say. King wrote this book for people who wanted to make careers of writing; he even includes advice about how to find an agent or a publishing company. This advice was for people who want to write, which wouldn't be the majority of students in any school. But I do, again, like the idea of centering stories about situations. I kind of have the students to that in spurts already, like with their brief journal entries. But maybe at some point, I could have them expand on this. I was also validated by King's very obvious advice to write often. I have my students write every day...fuck, why wouldn't I? It's a writing class. Okay, that must seem really stupid and obvious, but I have to admit that my rather practical approach to the teaching of writing has raised some eyebrows. Not to get into it to much, but I've been advised (not by anyone with authority) to teach students writing out of a textbook. The only way to learn "the craft" (as King calls it; not "the art," though he does refer to it as an art form in the book) is to engage in it. The mechanics and stuff come in time. King has only a little to say on grammar and mechanics, but basically implies that people know it by instinct. If they can speak properly, they can write properly...it comes with application and continued practice, I guess. No, I know. I don't expect that any of my students would want to go on to become writers, and my goal isn't really to make them become professional authors. But to just have the skill of writing, to be competent in communicating in the written language, in very important. King's book is for people who wish to go beyond that; but, since my course is on the teaching of writing, I can see some things that I can get out of it to apply to my curriculum.