I thought this is a book about writing skills, Goodreads got extraordinary 174,613 ratings and 4.32 point, I never thought a book kinds of teaching writing could be so welcomed, the other books similar as The Elements of Style got only 62,246 ratings and 4.2 point, without a doubt, I picked up this book quickly, until I know this is an autobiography of Stephen King 10 mins later
I’m not exactly sure if I heard of Stephen King, but I definitely sure I love the film which modified from one of Stephen King’s book The Shining, this classic film was directed by Stanley Kubrick, and be involved by Steven Spielberg’s recent film Ready Player One, see, all of them are worldwide genius
At the very beginning, Stephen King’s mother guided him writing by his own and by original:
She asked me if I had made the story up myself, and I was forced to admit that I had copied most of it out of a funny-book. She seemed disappointed, and that drained away much of my pleasure. At last she handed back my tablet. “Write one of your own, Stevie,” she said. “Those Combat Casey funny-books are just junk — he’s always knocking someone’s teeth out. I bet you could do better. Write one of your own.”
And at the end, he told audiences:
It’s a question that people ask in different ways — sometimes it comes out polite and sometimes it comes out rough, but it always amounts to the same:Do you do it for the money, honey?
The answer is no. Don’t now and never did. Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it. I have done some work as favors for friends — logrolling is the slang term for it — but at the very worst, you’d have to call that a crude kind of barter. I have written because it fulfilled me. Maybe it paid off the mortgage on the house and got the kids through college, but those things were on the side — I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.
I don’t intentional to read an autobiography these days, even by one of historical best author, so I deliberately focus on the writing detail of this book, so many beautiful sentences run to my eyes and so many questions blow my mind:
why use the slang ‘yark’ I can’t find in any dictionary instead of ‘vomit’?
I can’t find ‘let bygones be bygones’ in any idioms and phrases dictionary, how can I learn all of this kinds idioms?
the construction of sentence ‘Was she as hard on my brother David as she was on me? I don’t know’ is so beautiful, how long can I master this writing skill?
I leave all this questions to one day I can answer, then I will read this book again~
A talk by Steven King about ‘Stephen King Discussion on Writing and Q&A with wife Tabitha King and son Owen King’:
