Motivational Monday: Bad Writing

[Link] The Scariest Books Ever, According To Stephen King

Mario Tama/Getty Images

by Michael Gordon

If you say the words “horror novelist” to the average person, one name will inevitably come to mind: Stephen King. The man is synonymous with horror and has been ever since Carrie was published in 1973. On top of being a prolific writer, though, King is also an equally prolific reader who devours at least 80 books every year. Here are 40 that managed to scare even the Master of Horror himself!

Read the full article: https://recommended.spin.com/s/scariest-books-says-stephen-king/?as=799&utm_source=Organic&bdk=0

[Link] The 50 Best Horror Books to Read

From Stephen King classics to true crime tales, thrills and chills abound in this list of some of the most frightful reads of all time.

by Meg Donohue and Emily Burack

The horror genre is not for everyone. Assuredly, plenty of people don't understand why some actually seek out the feeling of being afraid. And that's perfectly fair, but this list is not for those people. This is for the people who can't get enough of the creepy crawlies and heebie jeebies—the ones who want to know more about things that go bump in the night.

If you're looking for a thrill and you're pressed for time, there's no shortage of horror movies that will do the trick. There's nothing like a good jump scare, for sure, and contemporary scary movies will certainly leave you with nightmares. But, there's something to be said about a scary book. As books do, it requires more of an investment from you, the reader. With that comes more of a build-up, more tension and therefore, more of a payoff. The phrase "page turner" is thrown around a lot when discussing books, but when it comes to the horror genre, nothing could be more suitable—and there's no time like the present to dig into a terrifying tale.

No matter what flavor of fright you seek—from mysteries to books with a twist, and from demons to the real life stories behind some of America's most wretched killers—there's a scare for every type of horror fan. If we may lean on the beloved Goosebumps tagline, "Reader beware, you're in for a scare." In no particular order, from classics to new releases, here are 50 of the best horror books of all time.

Read the full article: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/g38025995/best-horror-books/

Motivational Monday: Table Salt

 

Reviews for Writers: 1408

Surprise! It's another movie based on a Stephen King story with (gasp!) a writer as the main character. I know. Something we've never seen before, right?!

All kidding aside, this is my second favorite King movie about a writer (behind The Shining). It's also a pretty solid movie that doesn't fall apart in the third act like a lot of films based on King's work. Mike Enslin is a writer with a pretty compelling novel behind him, but after some hinted-at family trauma/drama with his dad, he puts that world behind him and begins to write travel guides/debunking books for haunted hotels. After his daughter Katie's tragic death, he can't handle life and he disappears on the road, leaving his wife without a word. 

Enter The Dolphin, a haunted hotel that may truly be haunted. (If only haunted by the presence of Samuel Jackson's overacting, but I digress.) After receiving a postcard with a photo of The Dolphin and a note that says "Don't stay in 1408," Mike's goal is set. Come hell or high water, he's going to bebunk room 1408. 

But, on the way there, he has a stop for a reading and book signing, where he is met by a store employee who would rather be anywhere else but at work, and this happens:

Mike: How's it going?

Employee: Can I help you?

Mike: Yeah, I'm here for the big event.

Employee: All right.

Mike: Cool. I'm Mike Enslin.

Employee: Sorry?

Mike: Book signing.

Employee: Oh, right. Oh, that's you, yeah. I see the resemblance, yeah. That's a good picture.

Employee: Thanks, man.

Employee: All right, hold on. Um... attention, book lovers.  Tonight we have noted occult writer Michael Enslin at the Author's Corner tonight. He's the writer of the best-selling ghost survival guides, um... with such titles as "10 Haunted Hotels," "10 Haunted Graveyards," "10 Haunted Lighthouses." That's tonight, 7:00 pm.

Clearly, of the three screenwriters (Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander, and Larry Karaszewski) one of them remembers what it's like to be an author doing a signing, particularly in an out-of-the-way location. The tell-tale signs are all there: disinterested store worker, not being recognized, being treated as an afterthought, the same questions asked over and over again about your work, etc. 

But the part that hits home for me here is the clearly marketing-driven titles of Mike's work: 10 Haunted Graveyards, 10 Haunted Lighthouses, 10 Haunted Hotels. They might as well say "You won't believe this place is haunted! Click here for the 10 creepiest haunts" and have an unrelated photo for the clickbait ad. It's this kind of marketing-think that (1) sells books because it understands why sheep need shepherds and (2) drives me up the wall because it dislocated the selling from the story and makes the writer barely more than a supplier of stock, no more than a sweatshop providing off-brand clothing. 

After the reading, during the signing, Mike asks often, "What name?" and then signs like an automaton, further reducing the creative role to that of robot (A.I. anyway?) -- at least until one nervous female fan, Anna, puts a copy of his hardcover novel from his previous writing life on the table for him to sign. 

Mike is astonished to see anyone even cares about that old thing from another life.

Mike: What rock did you find that under?

Anna: Um, eBay.

Mike: eBay, huh? How much did it go for?

Anna: Well, there weren't many bidders.

Mike: I would think not. Wow.

Anna: But it's, um... an amazing book.

Mike: Oh.

Anna: Um, so... unique and inspirational and honest.

Mike: Thanks. What's your name?

Anna: Um, Anna.

Mike: Okay, Anna.

Anna: Are you gonna write another one like this one?

Mike: Nah, it's a different guy.

I don't know about you, but I often feel that way. I feel like my writing life is a series of phases. 

The literary phase right after college.

The super hero phase during Cyber Age Adventure/iHero Entertainment magazine.

The comic book years.

The New Pulp Years.

Honestly, I only feel like now, when I'm blurring the lines more and more between all those previous "lives" that I'm finally coming into my own as a writer. But there are times when I get emails. "When are you going to write another..." And, like Mike, I often want to respond, "Nah, it's a different guy." 

The woman continues to ask about the old book. She's a detective, looking for clues to back up the theory she is seeking to prove. 

Anna: Um... can I ask you a question?

Mike: Sure.

Anna: Um, the relationship in the book with the father and the son... it's probably too personal, but, um, it's so authentic and...

Mike: Mm-hm.

Anna: ...well-constructed, and... is it true?

There's no denying that she's found the truth, but only to a sort of cursory degree. I get asked often at conventions how much of my writing comes from real life, and I always answer, "All of it, just not how you think." 

What I mean by that is that my characters have traits I've seen in people I know or encountered on a bus or at the grocery store or in traffic. But I haven't picked up a person I know, whole kit and kaboodle, and dropped them into my work. No, I've taken this bit, that bit, this motivation, this description, etc., and mixed them all up in a blender. The same goes for my plots. 

So, while there may be something of my relationship with my mother in a certain work, there's also something of other people's relationships with their mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles. It's never a 1-to-1 correlation. 

Eventually though, Mike arrives at the Dolphin and tries to get the key to room 1408. At that point, Mr. Olin, the hotel manager played by Samuel Jackson, appears and takes him to his office. No spoilers, but there is a wonderful bit where Olin offers Mike a cigar and Mike says, "I don't smoke." Olin motioned to a single cigarette sitting on his ear. 

Mike says: "It's part habit, part superstition. It's, you know, a writer thing."

I love this bit because I know so many writers who have our habits and superstitions regarding our writing. Certain music. Certain places. Certain arrangements of the knick-knacks on our desk or the resources near us at the table. Particularly the most OCD of us. You should watch me straighten the papers and line up the pens I keep handy (and my phone too).

At this point, the ghost story really kicks in, and in the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll skip to the end, when the horror is over (Or is it?) and Mike is putting his experience to paper for his final ghost guidebook. 

Lily: I never saw him writing so fast.

Mike: It is easy, I already wrote this book before.

Isn't it the truth? I don't know about you, but before I even start to write a scene (sometimes a full story), I've already written it in my head. It's done. It's just a matter of somehow getting it out of my head through my fingers and into my laptop. 

But it's not alone up there in my head. It lives with all the others that haven't been allowed to come out and hit the real world yet. Someday...

Movie Reviews for Writers: Salem's Lot

Stephen King is perhaps the writer most guilty (not that it's a bad thing) of using writers as his main characters. You'll find them everywhere in his work. 

Secret Window. The Shining. Misery. But this wonderful vampire flick is often forgotten among King's writer stories. 

David Soul (Starsky and Hutch) is Ben Mears, a successful novelist who has returned to the town in which he grew up so he can be near the old Marsten house, a building that has haunted him since he was a kid and that he wants to write about in his newest novel. Only, the house is soon to become a nest of creatures of the night that plan to take over the town of Salem's Lot. While most of the movie's plot is focused on the action of trying to fight the vamps as they grow in number and become an increasingly dangerous infestation in town, there are several moments when Ben gets to demonstrate the way being a writer affects his life. 

For starters, perhaps the most common stereotype of a writer is based in the need to be valued as an author, to have been read, and to be appreciated for what he or she or they contributed to the world. When Mears goes into the local property rental company to see about renting the Marsten house, he is confronted by the owner Larry Crockett, played with subtle comedic panache by Fred Willard.

Crockett: Are you a writer?

Mears: Yes.

Crockett: What do you write?

Mears: Books.

Crockett: Have I read any?

Mears: Have you read any books?

Crockett: Your books.

Mears: I don't know.

I remember when I visited the library in the town I grew up in a few after I had become a published author, and particularly after having several books on the shelves in Barnes & Noble, and even one in Wal-Mart. I had a conversation very similar to this with the librarian when I dropped off a few of my books. While I was reminiscing about looking up "wrong" books and making out with my then girlfriend in one of the nonfiction aisles back in my younger days at that very library, she was gazing through me, ready to ask the question: "Anything I might have read?"

It's the question that sounds an awful lot like "Are you a New York Times best-seller or do you have a movie based on one of your books? If not, why would I care?"

It can hurt the first time you hear it. Then it becomes a sort of expected inside joke between you and every other writer you know. 

There's a famous quote that goes like this: You can't go home again. There's a lot of psychological and emotional truth to that statement, but it's a truth we writers tend to ignore and always go back home again. 

For some (like me) it's literally turning my MeMe's house into my preferred writer haven, physically going home (since we moved around a lot, MeMe's house was my only real home growing up) again to find my most at peace place to write. 

For others it's returning to the themes and story ideas of our earlier work (whether finished or just old ideas jotted down in notebooks) to return home to the parts of you that made you want to write in the first place. 

For Mears, it's a combination of both. The Marsten house has haunted him since he was a child, and he not only wants to return to it as inspiration for his new novel, but he also needs to return home physically to be near it (since he couldn't rent it himself and live in it to write). While on a date with a local teacher, Susan Norton, Mears confesses the following:

Norton: You had to come home. Retreat.

Mears: Sanctuary. I was all beat up. Glad to have a little loving care.

Norton: How long since your wife died?

Mears: Two years.

Norton: Are you writing about that?

Mears: No. I'm writing about a house.

Norton: A house?

Mears: The Marsten house.

Norton: The Marsten house? I see. No, I don't see. 

Of course Susan doesn't see. It's not her "home again." It's Mears' compulsion, not hers. Only he truly understands why he wants or needs to write about that house. Just like only you understand why you want or need to write about zombies or growing up in the city or raising horses or superheroes in space or, well, whatever. 

Last, Mears has an opportunity to catch up with a former teacher, Mr. Burke to share something vital to all creators of fiction. 

Mears: My name is Ben Mears. You probably don't remember me.

Burke: Of course I do. I've read your books.

Mears: I wouldn't have written them if it hadn't been for you.

Burke: You just said a very large thing. I'd like you to explain it to me.

For me, Mr. Burke was Ms. Geraldine Warren, my high school Literature and Composition teacher. She's the one who instilled in me a love for reading and writing. And Shakespeare, but that's a story for another time. At the college level it was an American Lit professor, David, with whom I became a friend over the course of the class (I really wanted to say "course of the course") and kept in touch with over lunch afterward. He ignited my zeal and passion for short stories. 

It's Burke's line "You just said a very large thing" that resonates in this exchange, at least to me. 

At the time they were inspiring me, neither David nor Ms. Warren knew anything about the thing they were causing to happen inside me. Hell, neither did I. Not really, anyway. Not fully. It was only in hindsight I could see the picture form in its entirety. And it was a very large thing. And I do wish I could let them both know now that "I wouldn't have written them if it hadn't been for you." 

One has died, and the other has been lost across the changing of the Web from bulletin board systems to the original AOL to a real web of interconnected websites and various trendy email services of the moment. So, I really have no way to let them know. 

All that to say, tell somebody if you still can. Find your Mr. Burke. 

It's telling in this conversation that Mr. Burke actually knew about Mears' writing and had read his books, as opposed to the conversation with Mr. Crockett. The people who matter, ultimately really matter to you as an author, they'll know. They'll value you. They'll have read your work. They'll appreciate your contributions. And they'll have most likely been there throughout the journey in more cases than not. But you'll never know unless you let them know how important they are to your writer's life. 

[Link] AMC Networks Publishing launches with graphic novels, Stephen King, Kirk Hammett and more

by Heidi MacDonald

As long as I’ve been writing the Beat, I’ve heard rumors of TV networks starting their own comics lines to cheaply (sorry) generate IP in-house.  (Remember when Netflix was going to start a comics line because they signed up Millarworld?) It’s never quite happened that way yet, but AMC Networks Publishing might just be the closest thing yet – a publishing spin-off of the network that will put out fan-friendly, genre-forward specialty books, comics, original graphic novels and more.

The line is headed up by publishing veteran and Head of AMC Networks Publishing Mike Zagari, who worked at Marvel, DC, Disney and Aftershock before moving over to AMC, so he certainly knows the territory.

Upcoming projects include several comics, a graphic novel and a coffee table book, in partnership with talents like Kirk Hammett, Brendan Fletcher, Greg Nicotero, Stephen King and many more.

The first AMC publishing venture was a coffee table book, The Art of AMC’s The Walking Dead Universe, published in partnership with Image Comics and Skybound. The new AMC Publishing output will have various print partners, including Titan Books and Every Cloud.

“We’re excited to launch this new initiative with talented creators, writers, artists and storytellers to further engage our passionate fanbases with the stories and characters they love, as well as open the doors to discover new and compelling worlds,” said Zagari in a statement. “From deeper dives on AMC’s The Walking Dead Universe, Shudder’s Creepshow and Acorn TV’s Miss Fisher, to a brand-new collection of fantasy and comic-based tales from Kirk Hammett, Marcel Feldmar, Brenden Fletcher and more, we can’t wait to entertain and thrill our audience and fans in new and innovative ways.”

The line-up...

Read the full article: https://www.comicsbeat.com/amc-networks-publishing-launches-with-graphic-novels-stephen-king-kirk-hammett-and-more/

Movie Reviews for Writers: Secret Window

This movie begins with plagiarism. "You stole my story," says John Shooter to published author Mortimer Rainey. And from there, Shooter does everything in his power to get revenge on Mort for that theft... maybe. 

But that's all I'm going to say about the plot, other than Mort (Johnny Depp) and his wife (played by the amazing Maria Bello) are in the middle of a divorce after the loss of a child, and he has gone off to live in their mountain cabin and write. Then Shooter (John Turturro) shows up. So, right off the bat, there's a fantastic cast with lots of room to play in a sparse story. 

But we're here to talk about what it says about writing and the writer's life. 

There are quite a few major points of interest for writers that this movie really bangs a drum about (typical of a Stephen King story). 

The first is the fear of inadvertently copying bits (little or much) from things you may have seen before. There are no original stories, as the saying goes, just your personal way of telling them, but even knowing that, we don't tend to steal outright from existing works, at least not to the degree of flat-out plagiarism. 

After being accused of stealing Shooter's story, Mort denies the accusation. 

John Shooter: You stole my story.

Mort: I'm... I'm sorry, do I... I don't believe I know you.

John Shooter: I know that, that doesn't matter, I know you Mr. Rainey, that's what matters. You stole my story.

[holding out his manuscript to Mort]

Mort: You're mistaken. I don't read manuscripts.

John Shooter: You read this one already. You stole it.

Mort: I can assure you...

John Shooter: I know you can. I know that. I don't want to be assured.

Mort: If you want to talk to somebody about some grievance you feel you may have, you can call my literary agent.

John Shooter: This is between you and me.

[sees Chico under him]

John Shooter: We don't need no outsiders, Mr. Rainey.

Mort: I don't like being accused of plagiarism, if that is in fact what you are accusing me of. Chico, inside.

[Chico goes back inside]

John Shooter: I don't blame you for not liking it but you did it.

Mort: You're gonna have to leave. I have nothing more to say.

John Shooter: Yeah, I'll go. We'll talk more later.

[hands the manuscript to Mort to take it]

Mort: I'm not taking that.

John Shooter: Won't do you no good to play games with me, Mr. Rainey. This has got to be settled.

Mort: So far as I'm concerned it is.

Later, in the lonely warmth of his sofa in the cabin, Mort wonders, if he may have actually stolen it, but inadvertently or during a drunken stupor. 

But here's the wild part of all this, just as Mort's story, "Secret Window," is about a man who kills his wife and buries her in a garden through her secret window, he himself is harboring anger and bordering on rage toward his unfaithful wife. 

Writing echoes life, and particularly writing echoes the life of writers. Pain, anger, loneliness, family issues, job losses, unrequited love, etc., they're all real and they all end up in our stories. But because so many experiences are shared by so many, it's only natural that bits and pieces from one end up in several stories -- both simultaneously and/or across a number of years. The law of probability backs it up. 

Similar experiences and emotions can trigger similar stories. 

The trouble for Mort is that he has done it before and had to pay off another author for his trouble. The movie drives this home even with his "stealing" the words from a Talking Heads song when he looks at the home his estranged wife lives in: "This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. Anymore." 

But in most cases, the comparisons are merely random coincidences, different writers pulling from a fixed circle of possible stories, and sharing a few details in common. No matter how much you lock your manuscripts away or refuse to share details while simultaneously asking other writers for help will help avoid this eventuality. Sorry. 

The second bit I gleaned from a scene where Mort is staring at a paragraph and reading it aloud. "This is just bad writing," he says to himself. After deleting the entire paragraph, he added. "No more bad writing." 

But he really misses the point here. Sometimes bad writing is the catalyst for the truly inspired words to come. Sometimes we have to work through the stuff we're not happy with in order to trigger the good writing we live for. Nobody gets it perfect right out of the gate. That's what editing is for. 

Perhaps the one that hits closest to home is that writers live in their heads... a lot of the time. While arguing over the phone, Amy tells him "You were always gone," and he responds "I worked from home, Amy." She tells him that he knows what she means, he wasn't there really -- he was in his head all the time, not with her. 

Sadly, there's a lot of truth in that, and that's why it's important for writers to learn some kind of balance between family, regular life, and their writing worlds inside their heads. 

Finally, and this is the biggest one in the movie -- the important thing is the ending. Says Mort: "You know, the only thing that matters is the ending. It's the most important part of the story, the ending. And this one... is very good. This one's perfect."

I love the sort of self-deprecating wink and a nod from King in this line. It's no secret that plenty of reviewers have accused him of botching his endings -- or rushing them. So to have his lead character make this statement is a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek moment. 

And he's dead-on. The ending is the important thing. When a typical reader closes the book and puts it down, the only thing on his/her/their mind is the ending. Was it worth it? Did it come out of nowhere? Was it satisfying?

A "bad" ending can ruin an otherwise perfectly good book for readers. What is a good ending? Or a "perfect" one to quote Mort. It's going to be different for each story and each writer. It's something both personal and shared with an audience of readers. It's a way of writing "The End" without having to write "The End" at all. I know that's a sort of spiritual answer rather than a practical one, but "them's the breaks" my writer friends. 

Movie Reviews for Writers: The Shining

 

A caveat: This is not a review of Stephen King's book The Shining. This is not a comparison between Stanley Kubrick's movie The Shining and King's book. Yes, they are very different works with significant details changed from book to movie. But I'm reviewing Kubrick's film because his changes have something to say about his thoughts on storytelling and storytellers. Are we good? Okay. Let's move on, shall we?

There are lots of movies based on King's stories that say a lot about his thoughts on the act of writing and the character of writers, but the movie version of The Shining gives us a rarer peek into the mind of Stanley Kubrick about those subjects. 

Many smarter folks than me have analyzed this movie and come up with many varying ideas about what it is saying about several different subjects, from the genocide of the indigenous Americans to the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis in WWII, to it having something to do with faking the moon landing (in my mind the most ludicrous of the theories, but I digress). I, however, will look at what I feel this brilliant film has to say about Kubrick's view of the writer and the work of writing, and I think he tells us a great deal. 

Let's start with the oft-told idea of a writer having to "kill your darlings." Both Kubrick and King treat that in the most literal sense in the story of Danny and his family. But it's too easy to get distracted by that notion. Neither is saying that writing is actually about murdering your family. 

There's something be said for the idea of getting away to write, but we've covered that in several other reviews, so we won't go into that here, and besides, it's just more surface stuff Kubrick can distract us with. 

Let's move on to "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy." Of course, he's correct in this. As writers, the time we spend away from the keyboard is as important for us to recharge our physical and emotional and (most importantly) our imaginative batteries. Writers who live only in books, well, they aren't really living at all. A great writer once said to write what you know (and yeah, I know that statement has been abused), and to some degree, it's an important truth. Writers must live to write. We to experience in order to fuel our fictional dreams. 

But that's the real point of Kubrick's concept of the writer either, not completely. That's more surface distraction. 

Where King lets his writer hero slowly descend into madness from father to writer to killer, Kubrick starts with a manic writer and all but ignores the father role, giving viewers a crazy Jack pretty much throughout the film. That's a huge change. But it's another indicator that Kubrick is telling his own story and he isn't talking about family dynamics. He's talking about something else. 

Did you know that the maze isn't a maze at all in the novel? It's a garden. The maze was added to the movie as a visually terrifying change that would play out better on camera. I think it's more than that. The hedge maze isn't the only maze in Kubrick's vision. There's also the carpet pattern (which changes from scene to scene), the changing layouts of the Overlook Hotel itself (try to map it, you can't), and all the mazes begin when the family arrives at the Overlook when Jack is finally off the single path of the mountain's winding road and ready to begin to write. He moves from a single path to a myriad of possible directions. 

What is Kubrick saying about writing (at least in my interpretation)? Writers exist in mazes when we create, and we are captured inside them by the vast potential directions at our disposal. 

Think about your plotting. No matter how you do it, it's not a linear progression, not until it's edited and sent away. Then it sets in the glue. But before then, it's all about the changes in plot, shifts in focus, side trips that become important, things we thought were important that become dredge to be tossed in the bin. The act of creating a story is the act of living in a maze. 

So many options. So many choices. We haunt our mazes, and we are haunted by them. 

In the book, John (not Jack) is trapped in the boiler room and then the hotel blows up. In the movie Jack dies frozen in the hedge maze, one that doesn't even exist in the book. (Some say the world will end if fire and some in ice...) Danny backtracks to stay alive to leave the maze, all of them. Jack moves forward, further "being" in the maze. Ponder that for a moment. 

The writer dies in the maze. 

Read that again. 

The writer dies in the maze.

The writer (when he/she/they leave the "real world" and begin to write), lives in the maze and dies in the maze. The stories we tell, both the untold bits that float untyped or unwritten in our brains and the finished (or unfinished) ones we actually get down on paper (or in computer files), are the world of the writer. We are in that world when we write. We are in that world when we work a day job. We are in that world when we visit friends and family. The little bits and bobs of story never leave us alone. The maze travels with us. 

And when we die, the stories we didn't get to tell and still wish we could have had time to, will be with us still. Just like Jack, we die in our maze. 

That's not a bad thing, I think. In spite of all the horror imagery of this very visually disturbing film, Kubrick's message to writers is one of hope. There's a part of us called "writer" that exists outside the part of us called "father," "mother," middle manager," or any other title, and we become it when we exit the highway's path and enter the maze world where stories lie. Fortunately, unlike Jack, we have the ability to step back into the highway's path again and resume the role of father, mother, or middle manager. 

But there is still a part of us that stays in that maze and takes it with us. And if we're lucky, like Jack, when we are actually gone from this world, we enter the stories we found and live on through them, smiling in the "images" we leave in our words. 

Or I could just be as loony as that “moon landing” person. 

#MotivationalMonday -- Reading is Re-Reading

#MotivationalMonday -- An Elmore Leonard/Stephen King Two-Fer

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #351 -- Writers on the Writing Life (Bio-Journals)

What do you consider the best books about the writing 

life (not those about "how to" or that kind of thing)?

Excellent question. I love reading writers writing about the world as they experience it specifically as writers. (Hmm... I wonder if I can get the word "write" in that sentence one more time...)

For my money, Stephen King's ON WRITING is fantastic. It almost goes without saying to include this one is you are a contemporary writer. But that's only because it's such a great story of his life of crafting stories.



Another I absolutely adore is Eudora Welty's ONE WRITER'S BEGINNINGS. This one is as much a biography as it is a journal on becoming a writer. And trust me, it's prose is pure beauty.



Next would be one from my all-time favorite non-fiction writer, Annie Dillard. Here THE WRITING LIFE captures the beauty of creation through both the natural world and the internal world of imagination.



But perhaps no one understand the writing life better than that beagle of all authors -- Snoopy (with a little help from some of his biggest fans).

[Link] 22 Lessons From Stephen King On How To Be A Great Writer

by Maggie Zhang

Renowned author Stephen King writes stories that captivate millions of people around the world and earn him an estimated $17 million a year.

In his memoir, "On Writing," King shares valuable insights into how to be a better writer. And he doesn't sugarcoat it. He writes, "I can't lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers."

Don't want to be one of them? Here are 22 great pieces of advice from King's book on how to be an amazing writer:

1. Stop watching television. Instead, read as much as possible.

If you're just starting out as a writer, your television should be the first thing to go. It's "poisonous to creativity," he says. Writers need to look into themselves and turn toward the life of the imagination.

To do so, they should read as much as they can. King takes a book with him everywhere he goes, and even reads during meals. "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot," he says. Read widely, and constantly work to refine and redefine your own work as you do so.

2. Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with.

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. "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.

Oftentimes, you have to continue writing even when you don't feel like it. "Stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea," he writes. And when you fail, King suggests that you remain positive. "Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure."

Read the full article: http://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-king-on-how-to-write-2014-7

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#63) -- Reading Horror

Which horror books are your favorites?

The Tell-Tale Heart (1912) by
Martin van Maële,
engraved by Eugène Dété.

All of my favorite horror stories are the ones I read in my teenage years, much like most of my favorite music is what I loved growing up as a teen. Maybe that makes me different, or maybe we all tend to run back in nostalgia to re-embrace the stuff that helped to form our loves.

Regardless, my favorite short horror remains that of Poe. He just still creeps me out. Something about the way his writing style comes across like a drug-induced trip (or so I'm guessing, mom). In more recent years, I (finally) discovered Lovecraft, but his stuff doesn't scare me as much as it makes me ponder. And Algernon Blackwood is quickly rising up the ranks as well.

For contemporary authors, nobody gives me the heebie-jeebies like Robert Freese. His  images aren't gory as much as they are disturbing. There have been several times I've had to put his book down and rattle the images from my fevered brain lest I ponder the unthinkable. And that's (in my mind anyway) the mark of a gifted horror writer.

Can I eat your
little boy, ma'am?

For novels, it's still a tie between King's Christine, Cujo, and Pet Semetary. Of his works, those are the ones that really make me check under the bed, or around the corner, or take a second look inside the car beside me at the traffic light. It probably didn't help that I read Cujo a few years after my younger brother got a permanent scar from a dog bite on his upper lip. Go figure.

I have also rediscovered King's short fiction through my son, Jack, who is greedily devouring every King book he can get his hands on. The story "N," in particular, gave ADD-OCD me no end of freaky dreams and read like a trip inside my brain. No lie. The idea of good numbers and bad number. I SO GET THAT. Just ask me to tell you about it some time when we meet at a convention. Then have a seat. It could take a while.

[Link] Writers Wednesday: Famous Authors On Why They Write

All writers hit a slump sometimes. Life distracts. Momentum peters out. It happens.

Here’s what fuels the fire for these successful writers. Which of these “why I write” manifestos sounds most like you?


JOAN DIDION: I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Why did the oil refineries around Carquinez Straits seem sinister to me in the summer of 1956? Why have the night lights in the bevatron burned in my mind for twenty years? What is going on in these pictures in my mind?

NEIL GAIMAN: The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising…and it's magic and wonderful and strange.

STEPHEN KING: You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair, the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.

GEORGE ORWELL, in his essay “Why I Write,” offers four specific motives for writing. We’ve abridged them a bit here:

(i) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc.

(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement.

(iii) Historical impulse. Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.

(iv) Political purpose. Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.
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Orwell’s theory on what drives writers is a bit dry. And, actually, we think there may be some things missing from it (we’ll leave it to you to decide). Nevertheless, when we read this, it forced us to take a hard, merciless look at our own motivations; in other words, it forced us to be a bit more objective rather than emotional. And that’s a good thing.

For full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/28/famous-authors_n_1165816.html?ref=tw