When I started blogging over 14 years ago, the last thing I thought would come of this endeavor was a strong interest in writing. Call it serendipity, call it colleterial damage, but in a process led by technology then, that very technology has become secondary today. This being said, I have much, much more to learn about the art and craft of writing.

Reading On Writing by Stephen King was also serendipitous. Last summer while on vacation my family stopped at a yard sale as they had kayaks for sale. After learning the prices of said kayaks were more in tune with a Christies auction than stuff piled on an out-of-the-way driveway in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, I found a used copy of the book at the whopping price of 50 cents. As you will read on, this find made the stop worthwhile.

On Writing is part biography, part motivational speech and part textbook from the master of horror and suspense. It chronicles his life story to where he was when it came out 20 years ago – note there have been subsequent updated editions of this since then, however what I read was the original. In addition to the craft of writing, it also tells the tales of the trappings of the industry, including rejection, publishing and how you make a living leading up to publishing.

There were many takeaways from On Writing that I scribbled down as I read through it, what follows is the top, most meaningful of them to me.

The best of the advice he received – There are many pieces of advice that King got over the years that he recalls in the book. My favorite was advice he got from a newspaper editor, "When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story... when you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open” – Building on the advice he received, this really resonated with me. I have always felt that editing was just as equally important if not more so in some cases. To this extent, there is an example in the book of something he wrote, and then edited by hand, showing all of his hand marks.

“Don’t develop plot, let it happen” – As I am writing this post this rings so true, as the results of even this very sentence were not what I thought I would have written. Many times I go into writing something after already writing it in my head. Even then, as I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, the results aren’t always as planned.

“Write one word at a time” – When you look at it that way, it makes writer’s block almost seem silly.

King spent time in West De Pere, Wisconsin – As a child, King lived in a city just about 20 minutes north of where I am now. It’s nice to see I am not the only Red Sox fan who has lived in this area.

This is my first Stephen King book – For all I knew about Stephen King and have seen many of his movies, I have never read one of his books before. As that has now changed, I think I will mix up my reading stack for the year with one of his novels, perhaps The Running Man.

On Writing was a great read for me, as it was an honest look at a man who has been insanely successful at writing, and as humble as the person who could be sitting next to me in bleachers at Fenway Park on a summer afternoon. If you are interested in writing or simply want to learn more about the man behind Carrie White, I recommend On Writing. As with all books I read, the destination of its giveaway was to a friend who has the audio book of On Writing – narrated by King himself – who I thought might like to see his words on paper as well.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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