mekitron 's review for:

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

4.0

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kings psychological deconstruction of bad writers is spot on. 'bad writing is driven by fear', 'bad writers are ashamed of simple words', etc. its a sad book, not because king had the life-changing experience of being hit by a truck while writing it (an incident he recounted in details at the end of the book -- in a tour de force of the writing craft that hes been advocating until then), but because king honestly tells us all about his own doubts about how good he is as a writer, the things he tried to do to dispel those doubts, and how he didn't even think he should write this book until amy tan told him how audiences in her book tour never asked her about 'the language'. its hard to talk about yr low self-esteem as a writer without being either sentimental or all arrogant and denying it altogether. and king managed to avoid both by being honest. which is apt, since honesty is the most important thing in writing according to king.