Tuesday, January 10, 2012

"Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around."
--Stephen King, from On Writing

On Writing is the best book I've ever read about writing—but please don't interpret my poor writing skills as a strike against it. If I hadn't read On Writing I'd be even worse.
My favorite thing about the book is King's demystification of the artistic process, manifested in practical advice such as "2nd draft = 1st draft minus 20%." He makes writing seem fun, which is the way it should be. And he uses curse words every now and then, which I like.

2 comments:

  1. Got this from the library yesterday after seeing it here. Last night before I went to bed I picked it up planning on reading the forawrds (there are three of them.) Burned through 70 pages in no time at all. Laughed out loud a few times too.

    Thanks for the tip!

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  2. Glad you like it! Yeah, it's a vortex. I've re-read it many, many times the same way. "Oh, I'll just read a couple pages . . ."

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