I have not been into Stephen King since I was 11 years old. I read The Shining in one day after swiping it from a friend's mom's bookcase (I did this a LOT as a kid. Hello, The Executioner's Song and The Book of Lists!). Soon after that, I got Christine, The Dead Zone, and Carrie for Christmas. I think I read two of those books and then gave up on Stephen King entirely, but somehow got pegged as a Stephen King fan for years afterwards by siblings who assumed I wanted nothing more than MORE Stephen King books.

Anyway, I know people love or hate Stephen King, but I just don't get into the whole horror thing, in general, so I haven't read anything by him other than his EW column in years.

But I saw this at the bookstore recently and thought it might be a quick, fun read. And I've always talked about writing but never did anything substantial about it, so I thought it might do me well to see how one guy does it.

Also, I'm not one to sit around and refuse to listen to someone just because I don't like his genre or his writing style. Especially when that someone devotes his life to creating stories that evidently please a lot of people.

Who knows if I will actually start writing anything, but I did enjoy reading On Writing quite a bit. It was funny and oddly adorable. I really loved King's stories about his childhood efforts to dazzle classmates and his brother with his homemade magazines. His drive to create was so familiar to me and totally endearing. (Not that I'm saying all creative people are endearing. For instance, I am not.)

He just sounds like a fun guy who truly loves what he does and has a huge crush on his wife. I still probably won't read his novels, but I'd read something autobiographical by him again.