“It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” Writer Kurt Vonnegut provides a similar insight: “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about,” he says. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.” As King says, “I did it for the pure joy of the thing. You should write because it brings you happiness and fulfillment. What’s tricky with being a writer is that you do kind of have to please your publisher… unless you’re so famous that you can tell people to f**k off. It’s what I have.” You can’t please all of your readers all the time, so King advises that you stop worrying.Īgain, wise words. He writes, “If you disapprove, I can only shrug my shoulders. King has definitely come to terms with it. King used to be ashamed of what he wrote, especially after receiving angry letters accusing him of being bigoted, homophobic, murderous, and even psychopathic.īy the age of 40, he realized that every decent writer has been accused of being a waste of talent. “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered anyway,” he writes. Don’t waste time trying to please people.Īccording to King, rudeness should be the least of your concerns. And they are very needed since I have felt like giving up on fiction multiple times in the past 2 weeks. “Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.” And when you fail, King suggests that you remain positive. “Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea,” he writes. Oftentimes, you have to continue writing even when you don’t feel like it. “If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all,” writes King. King compares writing fiction to crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub, because in both, “there’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.” Not only will you doubt yourself, but other people will doubt you, too. ![]() Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with. No television?! And just yesterday I was telling someone that my best friends are my pets and my DVR. Steve (can I call you Steve?), you’re killing me with this one. Read widely, and constantly work to refine and redefine your own work as you do so. ![]() “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot,” he says. King takes a book with him everywhere he goes, and even reads during meals. To do so, they should read as much as they can. ![]() It’s “poisonous to creativity,” he says. Writers need to look into themselves and turn toward the life of the imagination. If you’re just starting out as a writer, your television should be the first thing to go. As one of the most successful and prolific writers that’s ever lived, I’d say Stephen King is a pretty good source for tips.
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