Book 22: On Writing by Stephen King
My mother is a Stephen King fan. She reads all his stuff, and considers him a great way to get some insight into American culture as well as usages of English colloquialisms. I would like Stephen King too, except I can't handle his scenarios at all. I am not entertained by the 'situations' that my mother will sometimes relay to me. I get so stressed out by the set-up (unstable alcoholic writer takes his meek wife and slightly off little boy into a giant hotel shut down for the winter where it's just them the entire. time - AUGH) so the only book of his I've dared to read is The Green Mile and that's because I saw the movie first and no story that Tom Hanks works on can be that scary. I read The Green Mile in one mammoth sitting. Oh, and I've watched the Dolores Clairborne movie that I thought was totally marvelous.
I found this book in our house, while hunting around for something new to read.
It was really fun! What surprised me was how kind Stephen King could sound, and how fundamentally decent. He describes some of his set-ups in works he's published and those still stress me out, so I will not be reading Christine or Cujo or It or Misery. Nosiree, no no. Even if my mother said that Gerald's Game was one of the most accurate and empathetic descriptions of an old person she's ever read.
My mother or whoever it was that last read this book underlined what s/he considered 'key passages' and wrote in Korean translations of unfamiliar words, so this was a fun 'double' read, where I read the book as I would read it, and as it was ready by someone else.
I liked King's rules about what to write and how to write - don't bother plotting, and write what's really fun for you to write.