On Writing: "A way back to Life"

On Writing, One word to describe it? Ingenious, it's clever and effective. And better yet- it isn't bossy. As strange as that sounds, Stephen doesn't once say, "this is the correct way to do it, and you have to follow it." This book isn't some manual, which too be honest is what I was expecting, Instead, he shares with us his knowledge, ideas, and beliefs but he also says that we are free to disagree. He reveals to us some very personal things which were essential parts of his journey to becoming the writer he is today. On Writing, is the perfect blend of anecdotes and knowledge.

He used humor where humor did not exist. He presented writing techniques in a way that taught the reader a thing or two, or at least me, but also managed to keep things interesting. At one point he made the book interactive, by giving the reader a writing challenge.

Overall, it was a good read. I really did enjoy it. His life story is defiantly fascinating. After all he says that, writing was "a way back to life,"(pg. 249) after a near death experience.

Four from Heather

Stephen King’s childhood was very eventful with his older brother including him in all his ideas and experiments and other adventures. I can’t even imagine the thought of blowing out all the circuits in an apartment building let alone two of them. (I was quite impressed when reading this.) But I guess that’s what happens when you leave children to entertain them selves. But their mother had little choice the same as many single mothers. I think all those early years of adventuring helped him become a creative writer.

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When I read the part about King’s alternative school newspaper I burst out laughing. What an idea to make a rude more personal school newspaper, and have course it sold like hot cakes. But like all good things it had to end. Every ending has a new beginning though, King got his beginning after getting in trouble with his newspaper, by getting a job as a writer in a local newspaper. Which gave him another stepping-stone to becoming a writer.

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The way King described the skills of writing by using the layers in the toolbox gave me a better understanding of how to use all the skills I have acquired over the years together to create my own style of writing. Also the fact that I don’t have to have a spectacular vocabulary to be a writer is a relief to say the least. 

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I was very surprised to hear that he had such a struggle to get to where he is today. King didn’t sleep and magically get to the top. He was really living on the edge, considering he had a family to support. Also finding out he had a drug and alcohol problem, was shocking to say the least. But thankfully he was able to get his life on track and keep writing fiction for all of us to enjoy. 

from Ally

My first impression of On Writing was that it wasn’t going to be a very interesting book. I personally don’t like reading too much, so I was not looking forward to reading a book over summer. I ended up going to the doctors & while I was waiting for the doctor to come in, I decided that I might as well start to read my book. As a began to read, I suddenly found myself at the part where King was having serious ear infections and had to go to the doctors for his painful treatment. I was completely grossed out at this point & I realized that I was sitting in a doctor’s office myself. I found that quite funny, but as I continued to keep on reading my book, I became more & more interested as I flipped every page. I was completely surprised on how interested I was in this book. As I was reading I noticed that this book didn’t have much about writing techniques. I found that it was a type of book that was trying to give you the urge to write, but not forcing you to.

First Blog/ First Impression

When i first heard that the book we were going to read was called On Writing by Stephen King I thought to myself, "OH GREAT!" Just one more stupid book we had to read that is going to tell me how to write. I was not looking forward to begin reading the book the day I purchased it, but i knew it had to be done sometime; and sooner was better than later. I flipped through the pages to find where the book started and where it ended. I couldn't believe a book that was supposed to teach you how to write could be over 250 pages long. Having no idea how you could explain how to correctly use punctuation, grammar and other writing techniques in a book at all, let along one that was that long. I started to read the book with a mindset that it would be horrible. When I flipped to the first page and started to read the very first paragraph; I soon found out that this was not a book about writing, it seem to be the life story of Stephen King. I was shocked. I would have never guess just by the title of the book that it would have started the way it did. The way he describes his life is very intriguing. I cant wait to see how his life turns out and why the book is called "On Writing".

In the Beginning... (There was an Introduction)

So the first thing you normally see of a book is the cover, right? This was not in fact the case with my reading of "On Writing- A Memoir of the Craft", because of me reading it on the Kindle, but I googled the cover, so I can still offer my opinion of how it may have affected the reading, or at least the reader's first impression. My search came up with two different covers: a dark photograph of a lone chair in an attic room and a light mostly beige photo of the doors on the side of a house leading to a cellar or basement, accented with bright flowers to the side. It seems to me that the latter is a more suitable cover because it seems to emulate the idea of an introduction more than that dark attic that seems to be more of an ending than a beginning because dark implies night, which is at the end of the day, while the light of the second cover implies the beginning of the day, and give the reader a brighter outlook of the subject of writing. Also, the basement door is fitting for the book because King has his "farseeing place" in the basement.

Then next interesting thing the reader finds in the book are the quotes "Honesty's the best policy" and "Liars prosper," both of which inherently contradict each other. (Hooray for an interesting oxymoron!) This piques the reader's interest, and makes them wonder what relevance the quotes have (and they do have relevance, since they come up later in the book.)

And now to the forward. The first thing that struck me about the forward was that King was also a musician. It seems to me that all art forms are interconnected in some way, and are just different ways of expressing creative tendencies. Few people really seem to connect all of the arts together, but they are connected. For example, if some what says they're an artist, everyone naturally assumes that they draw, or paint, or something like that. They would almost never guess that they wrote, or played music, or even cooked. All of those are arts as well.

Another thing that caught my attention at the beginning of the book was the comment King made about his band. "We found that we liked playing together too much to quit..." It has often occurred to me that artists are interesting and entertaining people, no matter which art they pursue, and the more arts they are interested in, the more interesting they seem to be.

King also wrote the phrase "... when you're standing in front of a group of author-struck fans and pretending you don't put your pants on one leg at a time like everyone else." It occurred to me when I read this that even though some people are considered "masters," like Shakespeare, and Homer, they're still human beings, and still eat and sleep like all us "lesser" people. Just because they seem great and powerful doesn't mean they're divine.

In his "Third Forward" King tells the reader the rule "The editor is always right." This rings with a certain truth, because if this person takes the time and effort to read through what you've written, and give you feedback on it, they probably want to be listened to, and there is probably a good reason they told you this. This also means you're going to want a good editor if you're going to be a writer.

~Cafferty Frattarelli

My First Entry

When we were first assigned "On Writing" to read and write on, I thought to myself in a sarcastic voice,"Oh great, a book telling me how to write...that's going to be fun." Although I have become a better writer from learning in school and practicing, I never expected to expand my writing skills from reading a book. But as I began to read and understand what Stephen Kings was trying to tell me, it dawned on me that this book is far from any instructional book on writing.

Instead of writing a "how to" book, King wrote an autobiography and lets the reader decide how his experiences shaped him as a writer. And while I still expected King to focus solely on his journey as a writer, he also included anecdotes and memories of seemingly unrelated events that, in the long run, shaped his literary style and him as a person. King melds his literary and life experiences to show the reader how he became a talented and renowned author.

First Blog Entry

Before actually reading "On Writing" by Stephen King, I expected to read general tips on how to enhance one's writing skills but, was pleased to realize that it was a novel on how Stephen King became such an exceptional writer himself. I feel that by revealing his own biography, King indirectly showed us where his strange and intriguing stories came from. Along with his horrific car accident, he shared life stories that better explain King's interesting novels and the great writing behind them.