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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="On Writing" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166254200m/10569.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10569.On_Writing?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">On Writing</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3389.Stephen_King">Stephen King</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8476212?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is a revelation as well as a confirmation of what I have always believed. If you work at something you will do it. King, like many writers, wanted to write from the get go and he didn't let anything or any comment throw him off. While I believe the gazette that he and his brother produced was advanced for their ages, I also know that it wasn't necessarily brilliant. It was kids at play doing what kids like to do...pretend they are what they want to be. Or not. I have a memory of playing with a friends old "operator" toy in the enclosed back porch of their farmhouse. 
 
 The room was the 1950s version of a modern family room with the added beauty of a forest outside the glassed walls--three sides! And Susie had a metal telephone board complete with plugs on rubbery wires that pulled out of a console to be pushed into a hole with a beeping light to connect one caller to the other. I loved it. Sitting there pretending to talk to I-can't-remember-who--my experience at that age was no farther afield than 10 miles of corn--I felt like a grown up. And an important one too. My job was to connect everyone in town with everyone else. Without me and my little headphone and plugs, no one could use the phone. But I didn't grow up being an operator. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Everything sounded like fun to me and I played at it all, nurse, teacher, librarian. And writer. But I didn't know any writers. That job didn't seem like a regular job. It seemed more like a gift. You were born with a little money on the moors of England with a strange depressive father. You had little to do but play with your sisters and brother. Your play was to make plays which led to writing plays which led to writing period.
 
 That wasn't my experience. I played at writing to but there were so many other things to play at too. 
 
 With King, he had a brother and between them, I'm sure they role-played a million different things boys play, but what stuck was writing, at least for Steven. He kept at it. He was not to be deterred. His play was writing and he just wanted to do it and did. 
 
 I began writing as a serious endeavor and that always hung over me. It's taken me most of my life to accept writing as being the same as playing "newspaper writer, editor, publisher." Or even operator. You have to give into it. Love it. Play all the time at it. And if you do that, eventually it will become what you do.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/248203?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Gay's review
rating:

recommended for: anyone who writes

This book is a revelation as well as a confirmation of what I have always believed. If you work at something you will do it. King, like many writers, wanted to write from the get go and he didn't let anything or any comment throw him off. While I believe the gazette that he and his brother produced was advanced for their ages, I also know that it wasn't necessarily brilliant. It was kids at play doing what kids like to do...pretend they are what they want to be. Or not. I have a memory of playing with a friends old "operator" toy in the enclosed back porch of their farmhouse.

The room was the 1950s version of a modern family room with the added beauty of a forest outside the glassed walls--three sides! And Susie had a metal telephone board complete with plugs on rubbery wires that pulled out of a console to be pushed into a hole with a beeping light to connect one caller to the other. I loved it. Sitting there pretending to talk to I-can't-remember-who--my exper...more This book is a revelation as well as a confirmation of what I have always believed. If you work at something you will do it. King, like many writers, wanted to write from the get go and he didn't let anything or any comment throw him off. While I believe the gazette that he and his brother produced was advanced for their ages, I also know that it wasn't necessarily brilliant. It was kids at play doing what kids like to do...pretend they are what they want to be. Or not. I have a memory of playing with a friends old "operator" toy in the enclosed back porch of their farmhouse.

The room was the 1950s version of a modern family room with the added beauty of a forest outside the glassed walls--three sides! And Susie had a metal telephone board complete with plugs on rubbery wires that pulled out of a console to be pushed into a hole with a beeping light to connect one caller to the other. I loved it. Sitting there pretending to talk to I-can't-remember-who--my experience at that age was no farther afield than 10 miles of corn--I felt like a grown up. And an important one too. My job was to connect everyone in town with everyone else. Without me and my little headphone and plugs, no one could use the phone. But I didn't grow up being an operator. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Everything sounded like fun to me and I played at it all, nurse, teacher, librarian. And writer. But I didn't know any writers. That job didn't seem like a regular job. It seemed more like a gift. You were born with a little money on the moors of England with a strange depressive father. You had little to do but play with your sisters and brother. Your play was to make plays which led to writing plays which led to writing period.

That wasn't my experience. I played at writing to but there were so many other things to play at too.

With King, he had a brother and between them, I'm sure they role-played a million different things boys play, but what stuck was writing, at least for Steven. He kept at it. He was not to be deterred. His play was writing and he just wanted to do it and did.

I began writing as a serious endeavor and that always hung over me. It's taken me most of my life to accept writing as being the same as playing "newspaper writer, editor, publisher." Or even operator. You have to give into it. Love it. Play all the time at it. And if you do that, eventually it will become what you do....less

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message 1: by Ellen

11/01/2007 09:21AM

I agree...this was a great read. Even more touching was that my dad sent it to me when it first came out.