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Very Late to the Party
Dec. 9th, 2017 11:39 amLast week, I finally got round to reading On Writing by Stephen King. People have been recommending it to me for years and, at long last, it reached the top of my reading pile. I think one of the reasons it took so long was because I was expecting to have to concentrate and take lots of notes, which turned out not to be the case. That’s not because the advice in the book isn’t sound, but mostly because I’ve pretty much heard it all before. Now, I’m not accusing Stephen King of being unoriginal in his writing advice - in fact, I think quite a lot of the standard tips came from his book. It’s just that they’ve been regurgitated by so many other people since, that the original (now nearly 20 years old) seemed hackneyed.
The first part of the book is about King’s youth, which I didn’t find particularly interesting, until it got to the bits where he recounted his early attempts at writing and getting published, which I did enjoy. There were some quite unpleasant anecdotes scattered throughout, which I could have done without, but I appreciated his brutal honesty when dealing with his drug and alcohol addiction.
Then, the actual writing advice began, and I also enjoyed reading that section - not least because it’s always useful to re-learn past lessons. I don’t agree with all King’s ideas and advice about writing, but I do agree with most of it, and I found his thoughts on revising particularly good. There was also a section about how a writer should go about getting published, which pretty much exactly describes what I’ve been doing for the past two years, so that was encouraging!
So, overall, an entertaining and useful read, but not the mind-blowing essential manual I had been led to believe - but that’s only because it took me so long to get around to reading it!
My other reading experience of last week was the new Reacher novel by Lee Child - The Midnight Line. I listened to this, and was delighted to have Jeff Harding back in my ears. This latest novel was classic Reacher, and highly enjoyable, at least to begin with. A ridiculous con-incidence sends Reacher off on a mission that involves a female law enforcement officer, and bad guys in a small community. The morality in this one was a bit more complex, with some interesting discussion of the lack of support for military veterans, wounded in the line of duty, who then become addicted to painkillers. It was a bit grim in places, and dragged a bit towards the end. It picked up again for a fun and exciting climax, but the ending then fell a bit flat. Still, it was Reacher, mostly on fine form, and generally very entertaining.
The first part of the book is about King’s youth, which I didn’t find particularly interesting, until it got to the bits where he recounted his early attempts at writing and getting published, which I did enjoy. There were some quite unpleasant anecdotes scattered throughout, which I could have done without, but I appreciated his brutal honesty when dealing with his drug and alcohol addiction.
Then, the actual writing advice began, and I also enjoyed reading that section - not least because it’s always useful to re-learn past lessons. I don’t agree with all King’s ideas and advice about writing, but I do agree with most of it, and I found his thoughts on revising particularly good. There was also a section about how a writer should go about getting published, which pretty much exactly describes what I’ve been doing for the past two years, so that was encouraging!
So, overall, an entertaining and useful read, but not the mind-blowing essential manual I had been led to believe - but that’s only because it took me so long to get around to reading it!
My other reading experience of last week was the new Reacher novel by Lee Child - The Midnight Line. I listened to this, and was delighted to have Jeff Harding back in my ears. This latest novel was classic Reacher, and highly enjoyable, at least to begin with. A ridiculous con-incidence sends Reacher off on a mission that involves a female law enforcement officer, and bad guys in a small community. The morality in this one was a bit more complex, with some interesting discussion of the lack of support for military veterans, wounded in the line of duty, who then become addicted to painkillers. It was a bit grim in places, and dragged a bit towards the end. It picked up again for a fun and exciting climax, but the ending then fell a bit flat. Still, it was Reacher, mostly on fine form, and generally very entertaining.
