STEPHEN KING - ON WRITING

‘If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.’ I’ve been doing a large amount of reading, and I did wonder if that was me procrastinating. Apparently not. In fact I’ve been making time and gathering tools to write.

Part of the book ‘On Writing’ shows incidents and life situations which made Stephen King the writer he is today and the rest is on writing itself.

Here are some of the things that Stephen King said about writing that stood out for me:

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 recognise them when they show up.

Periods of idleness followed by periods of workaholic frenzy. (This really struck a chord in me.)

The Great Commandment – Read a lot, write a lot.

In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.

‘On Writing’ was a worthwhile read for me. It showed me that even a writer of Stephen King’s calibre travelled the roller coaster ride of the writer’s journey to get where he is today.

Keep writing…. J