studying: stephen king's on writing

i have another post series to start. yep another. this one isn't about the sponge-ing during a live event like i have with mr. conroy, mrs. kidd, and mr. gladwell. this one is about my personal study of writer how-to books. i think it's equally as important to actually read the works of the best writers as it is to hear their stories of how/why/when/etc.

for instance, i find myself frequently asking hmmm, i wonder if this author dealt with this first hand...or did they study it and research it? stuff that i would never have thought of on my own. reading their books on how they did it and why they did what they did or how they got started...it's so useful to me. i have always been interested in the imdb of life. which crappy parts did the actors do at the beginning, what were their big breaks, did those breaks look like just another part or did the actors know. it's only natural that i crave the same information in the literary world.

right now, i'm reading stephen kings's on writing and i'm love love loving it. it's like the best of both worlds. it's part memoir and part master class. it's easy to read and i feel like i know him now because of how personal it is. and then he'll throw this geniusness in there. needless to say, i'm taking notes and scribbling all over the book itself.

my questions regarding 11/22/63 are totally being answered. he worked at a mill i was curious about, lived in wisconsin, was an english teacher, was a janitor for one summer with his brother and met another janitor with a limp named harry. if you haven't read 11/22/63, you have no idea the significance. but for me...it was the icing on the cake.

what i like about this book most of all is how regular his story is. maybe too regular. i grew up with his name as a horror book (most were also films by the time i came around) author. i had no idea he was anything other than hugely successful writer. no idea he struggled. no idea of where any of his ideas had come from. but now i do, and i'm happy to say, i feel like i'm on the right track.

i started to write down some "tips" he gave me, but i think it would take about 20 pages to type all the amazingness i learned. so i'm going to wait for another post! trust me, it will be worth the wait.

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