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More writing tips, but this time from someone who REALLY knows WTF he’s on about
By Joe | March 22, 2008
Love this post about Stephen King’s attitude to writing, and particularly about not being afraid to use your own voice. So much of what you read from new writers is written in the way that they think they should be writing, writing by the book instead of writing the book, if you like. You’ve got to use your own style and not give a flying F if that’s not the way you’ve been taught to write. Approach your writing with your fists clenched and in the frame of mind that it’s going to kick ass. Then see what happens.
“At nineteen they can card you in the bars and tell you to get the fuck out, put your sorry act (and even sorrier ass) back on the street, but they can’t card you when you sit down to paint a picture, write a poem, or tell a story, by God, and if you reading this happen to be very young, don’t let your elders and supposed betters tell you any different. Sure, you’ve never been to Paris. No, you never ran with the bulls at Pamplona. Yes, you’re a pissant who had no hair in your armpits until three years ago - but so what? If you don’t start out too big for your britches, how are you gonna fill ‘em when you grow up? Let it rip regardless of what anybody tells you, that’s my idea; sit down and smoke that baby.”
- Taken from King’s introduction to the revised edition of The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger.
And thanks to Amy Palko of Lives Less Ordinary (who is writing a thesis on Stephen King) for bringing it to the public domain.
http://writetodone.com/2008/03/20/stephen-kings-greatest-lesson-for-writers/
Topics: Writing tips |