I completely agree. if you ahve to have a book to give you incite on how to write, then put down that typewriter! :-) I read "On Writing" when it came out, but I didn't find anything in there that I didn't already know, OR some stuff that I completely disagreed with (like force yourself to write). Some of the stuff that King talks about is good and partly agree upon (I think in On Writing he talks about how you should let the characters become their own, and let the book become its own - as if the book has its life). But I don't think anyone really disagrees with that kind of stuff.

The best suggestion that King offered for me was to read lots of other stuff. In high school I read the same kind of stuff from different authors (mostly King himself, and then some other horror type writers). Being forced to read other stuff in high school and college helped tremendously.

With regards to King - He came out with a new short story book a few months back that is pretty good. Today, he seems his best when he forces himself to be short! :)

Jordan .

i think king's best advice is to write something you'd want to read. it seems like a no-brainer, but i honestly used to write with an audience in mind, which made it difficult.

of course, now i'm writing for an audience of 1 who has IMPOSSIBLY high standards so i never actually write more than a paragrph or two, but those are damn good paragraphs.

I should just print this on a t-shirt because I say it so often...Stephen King is an incredibly talented short story writer. Back in the day his novels and short stories were on par with one another, but these days any novel he writes is just a waste of paper and the alphabet. But his short stories...they continue to shine, and I think it's because he has to whittle everything down to the nitty gritty to get his point across in 50-100 pages rather than 1200. The format is the perfect restraint for his need to unleash the verbal diarrhea.

I seriously think we need to get a gang of us Gazetteers going for NaNoWriMo '09. I would love to see what kind of madness each of us can churn out in 30 days. :D

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Jordan .

lol

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

j, I don't like what King has become. There's a relatively clear delineation in his body of work between really great stuff and nothing but hit-or-miss (heavy on the miss). I don't know what changed...if perhaps he has just gotten a bit burned out on writing novels but hasn't fully realized it yet, or what. But he's not the same man whose books used to keep me up and reading all night long. It's sad. He has an excellent grasp of humor and the macabre. He's just pissing it away on crap novels now.

Jordan! YAY! :D This should be a hoot. It's always amazing to see what kind of random things spill out of your brain when given a deadline and a word count goal. Two years ago I spent my final NaNo hours (and last 3k words) writing from the local coffee shop with two other people in my town who were also on the tail end of their word count goal, and it was a hoot. We just drank lots of coffee and wrote until our brains fell out.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

But print is dead. Technically, every time you click "post message" here or anywhere, you've been published.

Um, you can't depend on writing books. Screenplay: Writing the Picture is good for basics, so your form looks professional.

Ayn Rand's The Art of Fiction is useless crap, and she's as asshole, too.

I think the best advice I ever got about writing is don't get writer's vanity. Just because you like it doesn't mean it's not disposable. So find an editor you trust and be willing to detach from what you create.

AMEN. When I was in college the first time around, going through the journalism program, our school had an Ayn Rand Society. They wanted to publish a weekly feature in our paper and when I soundly refused (I read their sample pieces and they were awful and bizarre), they got uppity and staged a protest of our offices. Bunch of self-righteous idiots.

And you are 110% correct with not having vanity and detaching from what you write. It's nice to like your own writing, but very few writers ever become successful by allowing nothing to ever be changed in their novels. Editors and agents are there for a reason, and most of them are damn good at what they do. You just have to trust them more than you trust yourself sometimes.

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Poor Stephen King.  It was pretty crappy what happened to him as he was losing his vision and all to get hit by a van while taking a leisurely stroll on a country road.  He's done his part.  The Stand will live forever.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper