The best book I read this month was actually a re-read of an old favorite, Stephen King’s On Writing. I read the book when it first came out in 2000, and reread it this month with my writer’s group. It’s still one of my favorite books about writing and, for the most part, it holds up after twenty years.
On Writing is part memoir, part philosophy. King recounts his journey from childhood to best-selling author and, in an epilogue, tells about the horrific accident that occurred during the writing of the book. My favorite anecdote in the book is the story of how his wife, Tabitha, saved Carrie. She literally pulled the manuscript out of the trashcan. That book turned out to be the one that launched his career.
In addition to telling the story of his life, King also shares his thoughts on the craft, process, and business of writing. When I first read this book twenty years ago, as a baby writer, I took every word he wrote as gospel. After all, he is the Great and Powerful Stephen King. Now, with twenty years of writing experience under my belt, I came away with a different view, one much less absolute than King’s.
Much of what King says holds true for me—the importance of reading in order to write, the importance of writing for yourself first before sharing your writing with others, the importance of having a command of the basics of language. But now I see the privilege that allows him to make such grand pronouncements as “You must write X words a day.” He could spend hours a day churning out thousands of words because he didn’t have to do the mundane day-to-day tasks of running a household. His wife did/does that. (All this made me wish I had a wife like Tabitha to take care of all my household stuff so I could also have hours a day to write.) Because each of us had different life circumstances, I think my view is more “find what works for you”—and that may not be writing every day or writing thousands of words a day, as King recommends.
Where King got it absolutely wrong was in his advice about finding an agent. I’m in the Query Trenches now in my own search for an agent, and King’s advice is flat out wrong. It may have been right when he was a newbie writer looking for representation, and it may even have still been true when the book was published in 2000, but it absolutely is not true now. So if you want an literary agent, find another source of information. This book will steer you wrong in that regard.
That said, this is still one of my go-to writing books. I love King’s down-to-earth tone and his use of humor, and his advice about the craft of writing feels timeless. I suspect I will be re-reading this again down the line.
