Musings: On Writing

I heart Stephen King. I read the daylights out of Stephen King years ago, stopping when the books resembled (and weighed as much as) concrete blocks. But after reading, and re-reading, his wonderful portmanteau of a writer's manual and memoir, I'll probably have to revisit the "K" shelf at the library soon.

King's memoir is by turns hilarious, heartfelt, and as bracing a slap as a shot of whiskey (King admits he got braced and slapped a lot over his career, at least until his wife and friends staged a huge intervention and finally got him clean). The behind-the-scenes look at this hugely successful writer is fascinating, but the real meat of the book is in his advice for aspiring writers.

King has no patience with literary snobs, whether they be readers or writers. As he said when he accepted the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation (under much protest from the literary intelligentsia),

Tokenism is not allowed. You can't sit back, give a self satisfied sigh and say, "Ah, that takes care of the troublesome pop lit question. In another twenty years or perhaps thirty, we'll give this award to another writer who sells enough books to make the best seller lists." It's not good enough. Nor do I have any patience with or use for those who make a point of pride in saying they've never read anything by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Mary Higgins Clark or any other popular writer. What do you think? You get social or academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture?

Amen to that. If you've ever read popular press about romance and women's fiction authors, you're screaming in solidarity with the horrormeister from Maine. King is proud of his work not because it's made him gazillions of dollars, but because it tells the truth.

The thing that resonated with me on this reading was this solid-gold piece of advice about the art and craft that both drives me on and drives me crazy:

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy. Some of this book--perhaps too much--has been about how I learned to do it. Much of it has been about how you can do it better. The rest of it--and perhaps the best of it--is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.