On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (Part I) - In showing how he became a writer King tells stories of his youth. He was imagining at 2. I have only vague memories until I was in Grade One. The episodes of his earliest years are vivid especially on getting his ear drum repeatedly pierced. I do not have any dramatic early memories. 

He recounts that at 6, he missed so much of Grade One because of illness that he was held back. While ill he did read “approximately six tons of comic books”. I was an equally avid reader at 6 but my access to comic books was limited to what I could read at the Red & White General Store in Meskanaw while my Mom was shopping for groceries. 

I think a key difference between us was that King started writing stories as a child with the encouragement of his mother who paid him a quarter for each of four stories. They were “about four magic animals who rode around in an old car, helping out little kids”. I did not create stories at 6. Even as a child King heard in his head the voices of characters.

King, as with myself, was of the last generation to start to read before television was in the home.

By the time he was 12 he submitted a science fiction story to a magazine. I was most impressed that he typed it on a Royal typewriter he was given at 11. I was well into my teens before we had a typewriter and I could never do more than hunt and peck until I was in university.

He illustrates the point that “good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere” by how his first original story on counterfeiting coupon stamps came from his mother musing about how many more stamps she needed for a lamp and showing him that her tongue was green from licking many many stamps.

He got his first of years of rejection slips for the “Happy Stamps” story but kept writing and submitting. 

I had no literary interests as a teenager but continued to read and occasionally wrote down what I had learned about countries. I was fascinated by geography. King does not talk about reading encyclopedias for fun. I loved encyclopedias.

He was a movie aficionado, especially horror movies. Living on a farm I had rare access to a movie theatre.

What was clear to me was King’s imagination as a child, teenager and adult was never at rest with regard to fictional stories. My imagination focused on geography and history, imagining places and events far from the farm.

In high school he wrote a horror story plagiarized from a movie. It was a best seller among his classmates but resulted in confiscation by the school administration and return of sales. What he remembered best was the feeling of shame when he was asked why he wanted to write such “junk” when he had talent. He says every writer has had someone make a comparable comment to them.

From a small town newspaper editor for whom he was writing stories on spors he learned the essence of editing:

“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you re-write your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”

From a university workshop group which included his wife-to-be, Tabitha who is a poet, he confirmed his “belief that good writing can be simultaneously intoxicating and idea-driven”.