On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

by Stephen King

Grammar is not just a pain in the ass; it’s the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.

The more fiction you read and write, the more you’ll find your paragraphs forming on their own.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it “got boring,” the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.

Let your hope of success (and your fear of failure) carry you on, difficult as that can be. There’ll be time to show off what you’ve done when you finish… but even after finishing I think you must be cautious and give yourself a chance to think while the story is still like a field of freshly fallen snow, absent of any tracks save your own.

You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%.