“The most important thing is that the writer’s original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader’s. Running a close second was the realization that 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.”
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
I’ve put off reading this book, mostly because I loathe that section of the bookstore. I see all these books about writing and feel they are the domain of people who dream of being writers but never do. If I go there, then I am admitting that I am that person. I read one book about writing after my senior year of high school, a gift from a teacher, and never touched another for fifteen years.
But I kept hearing about this book and figured I’d give it a shot. To be perfectly honest (why stop now), I had a low opinion of King not too long ago. I’d read many of his books in high school, enjoyed these books in my basement bedroom with fake wood paneled walls. But then I went to college and majored in English lit. Best-selling horror was definitely not in the canon, so to speak. And I became something of a literary snob.
And then last year, I read The Dark Tower. I found it gritty and heartbreaking, frustrating and elating. It’s art. There’s a reason this guy has cranked out so many books. He’s got some goddamned talent. These books killed the last of my university snobbery. I began to enjoy Harry Potter in public.
Stephen King does not need my approval, my praise of his memoir. I’m writing this for me. And the thing I want to say is that On Writing is an entertaining tale packed full of useful nuggets like what I’ve quoted above. I’m reminded of all the bullshit management books I read in business school. But those books always felt like one obvious axiom in the middle of a story about how some white guy made a lot of cash in corporate America. They smacked of someone wanting to capitalize on their success. But this is different. This book reads like someone amazed with his life, his luck. It’s more like he’s writing the book for himself, as if he might understand the life that has befallen him. It’s like King is passing on some of his knowledge to pay a debt for his good fortune.
