On Writing- First Impressions

Well, I have no idea what the heck I'm supposed to write about in a blog, so I'll just write something. I got the book On Writing over the "Amazon Whispernet," which is the thing that sends electronic books to your Kindle. Much more convenient than having to find the book or order it online and wait for it to get there. The e-book form is also more convenient because it's lighter and more compact. I can also take notes and highlight passages right in the book. The downside is it's difficult to tell which page you're on, to give as a reference point to anyone who doesn't have a Kindle. I got the book right before I went on a camping trip with my family, most of which involved driving to different locations, setting up the tent, walking a few miles, eating stuff, going to bed, and repeating the next morning. Not that it wasn't fun, but, yeah...

So, about the book. I started reading our first night on the camping trip (not on the car ride, because reading the car makes me sick, unfortunately...) It was dark out, the fire was burning low, and I had just eaten dinner... You know what, this is all irrelevant anyways. I'll cut to the chase (because reading a book is just oh so fun to read about....) I read the book, finished in five days, and got back home. All this time I didn't have internet, so I couldn't actually blog as I read, which I would have preferred to do. Now I'll just cut these blogs into sections. This blog will be about my general impression of the book. The next blogs will be about specific parts of the book, in chronological order (in the book, not in real life, because parts of the book skip around the timeline). Voila. A plan.

Okay, my impression of the book. Overall, very well done. Informative, but not telling you DO THIS OR YOU SHALL PERISH. There are some parts that tell you pretty much what you SHOULD do, but the author, Stephan King, says even he doesn't follow these rules (guidelines...) religiously. Also, the book was an interesting read. The author imbued the book with enough personality that it didn't feel like an instruction manual. This may be because about forty percent of the book is almost completely autobiographical, and much of the rest has small autobiographical snippets thrown in to give his advice some perspective. Perspective is always useful (unless you're in the Total Perspective Vortex. This is a Douglas Adams reference. If you don't get it you should definitely read his books. They're great. Okay, back from the tangent now.) He mentioned quite a few things that I realize I need to focus on, such as too much description. I will touch more on this in my 'details' blogs.

The organization of the book flows nicely as well, with the life of a writer leading up to the accumulated writing wisdom of the writer. Showing how different aspects of the writers life helped influence his writing and help him grow was a nice touch, instead of focusing on all the niggly little nuisances of grammar and such. I also love the use of humor to lighten the heavieness of the subject of writing and what to do and what not to do.

So, that was my impression of the book. The next blog I post will delve more into the book and mention more specific details and have a great deal more focus.

~Cafferty Frattarelli