WEEK 7 FEATURE WRITING BLOG FORUM

1) I didn’t end up writing the profile, so I had no one to contact for this first topic. For topic two, however, I can hardly narrow it down to the two most important things I learned from him. Stephen King was certainly full of good advice.

I’d have to say that his emphasis on reading is warranted. If you don’t read other people’s work, not only are you missing out on inspiration and new ideas, but you also aren’t getting in the mood for writing.

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”

Going without books means you are less likely to have stories in your brain, and words on the tip of your tongue in a time of need.

I always feel more creative when I am exposed to others’ creativity.

The second thing I found helpful was that he believes that research shouldn’t overshadow the story. 

It’s so true! Too many times I have started on a story, and when I need to stop and research something, I get carried away. I spend copious amounts of time dredging through the facts and boring stuff that I will never end up needing. This either causes me to lose inspiration or I put too much dull mumbo-jumbo in a story when it wasn’t needed in the first place, simply because I spent so much time figuring it out.

2) My favorite quote from “On Writing” is as follows:

“So okay― there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You've blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want.”

If you read, write consistently, recognize good ideas, take a deep breath and just start, you can literally write about anything. I find this to be the most liberating of revelations.

Eventually, “Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.”

I can’t even stop quoting him. I’ll consider this a good thing.