I’ve just finished reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000), a book about writing by Stephen King. Blogs like Brain Pickings often quote from it. 

I only know Stephen King from the movie adaptations of The Shining, The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption. But after reading On Writing, I feel like I’ve known King for ages.

He writes about his wandering youth, drug addiction and a near-death experience – caused by a guy who had a hard time driving a Dodge van. King does this to show why he writes. ‘For the buzz’ and ‘as a spit in the eye of despair’.

These are the things I’ll remember after reading On Writing:

• Shut the door. King stresses that you shouldn’t ask people to read along. It’s about your imagination and you shouldn’t worry about explaining the story at an early stage.
• Write two drafts. Don’t edit while writing the first one. You’re trying to uncover a fossil; a story of which the first idea has popped up in your mind and that you should now try to grasp in its entirety. Just worry about the story.
• Keep the first draft in a drawer for six weeks.  
• In the second draft, look for meaning and ideas. Rewrite the story in such a way that your theme comes out more clearly for the future reader. 
• Formula: 2nd draft = 1st draft – 10%.
• Alcohol and drugs won’t stimulate your creativity.
• ‘Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.’

And:

• ‘God, if only I were in the right writing environment, with the right understanding people, I just KNOW I could be penning my masterpiece’.

Without making any false promises – ‘a good writer will never become a great writer’ – King encourages you to start uncovering fossils.

Of course this is a terrible summary of a wise and warm book. Please just see it as a lengthy recommendation to read On Writing. 

If I’ll, one day, will want to write a work of fiction, I’ll definitely read this book again. 

But first, I’ll read at least one of Kings novels. When you’ve come to like a person so much in just a couple of evenings, you want to know what he has created. 

Stephen King – On Writing: a memoir of the craft (2000)