On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

I'm not a King fan but picked up the book after some bits were featured on the 37signals blog [http://37signals.com/svn/]. It's a funny book about his childhood, how he became a writer, and the accident he was in that almost killed him. Strunk & White have laid out the basics of being a good writer; King retells what it was like to fail and achieve.

Also, there's a lot of fart jokes.

If you're gonna read a book about writing, who better to study than The King? On Writing is as much a book about the philosophy of writing as it is about the nuts and bolts of the process, and King is his usual charming, no-nonsense self within its pages. If you're a wannabe writer who needs that little kick in the rear to get back to the keyboard and get going, read this book. Trust me.

This is a book I return to again and again, and not just for writing advice. Stephen King is an excellent story teller, whether he is talking about the tools of writing, his childhood, or the accident that almost took his life.

‰ЫПI like to work longhand, actually; the only problem is that, once I get jazzed, I can‰ЫЄt keep up with the lines forming in my head and I get frazzled.‰Ыќ

‰ЫПSomeone ... once wrote that all novels are really letters aimed at one person. As it happens, I believe this. I think that every novelist has a single ideal reader; that at various points during the composition of the story, the writer is thinking, ‰ЫчI wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?‰ЫЄ‰Ыќ

Good advice for aspiring writers such as myself. Has a fair bit of his history to start it off and the second half is chock full of solid bits of advice alongside his particular methods for approaching writing.