On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is a combination autobiography/writers guide written by the prolific suspense novelist Steven King. I read this one after Michael Hyatt mentioned it in one of his posts on writing. I don’t regret reading it, but I also didn’t get as much out of it as I’d hoped, in terms of writing.
King’s book is broken up into four main parts: his history, the writer’s toolbox, writing, and the rest of life. Super practical people (such as myself) might feel tempted to save themselves a bunch of time by just reading the middle two sections, but I wouldn’t recommend doing so. I’ll tell you why in a bit.
The reason I didn’t get as much out of this book as I’d hoped was because it was directed primarily at fiction writers. It makes sense, that’s what he knows and does, so that’s what he wrote about. However, I’m not really interested in writing fiction. I love to read it, but I’m not interested in writing any myself. For that reason I didn’t get as much out of it, in terms of writing, as I’d hoped.
That isn’t to say that I didn’t get something out of reading it. To the contrary, I think I got something very important from his book. Something that I think is the most important for anyone reading it to learn, fiction writers, nonfiction writers, and non-writers alike.
King talks openly about his drug and alcohol addictions, and how he overcame them. In the process he comments on how he’d mentally attached those things to his craft. How he’d made them harder to give up by tying them to something so important to himself. How he was finally able to overcome his addictions, and keep his writing, by realizing that neither of those things were the most important thing in his life.
This is the most important take-away from the book: Writing is not the center of life.
You can take that statement and insert just about anything in the place of “Writing”. Work isn’t the center of life. My hobby isn’t the center of life. My passions aren’t the center of life. All of those things are good, but they can’t be the center. It’s the lesson of having your priorities in order.
In order to keep from throwing your entire life out of balance in the pursuit of one, or even of couple, of otherwise good things you have to keep your priorities in order and in sight. In my life, for example, my priorities are (roughly) 1)Jesus, 2)Becca (my wife), 3)Family/Friends, 4)Self, 5)Work/Ministry/Passions.
These priorities don’t always play out perfectly in my life, I often allow the busyness of the fifth item to push back everything else. Or, in selfishness, I move myself to the front of the list. But those are the times when things are out of balance and need to be corrected. It’s good to have passions and projects and hobbies — but those things need to be in their proper place.
And that is the greatest lesson of King’s book.
So my recommendation of this book is tiered. 1)If you are, or desire to be, a fiction writer then I would say that this book is invaluable, a must-read. 2)If you’re a nonfiction writer, then I would still recommend it, but know that a lot of the writing content won’t apply to your particular writing goals. 3)To everyone else, I would say that you could certainly benefit from reading it (you may even get better at writing e-mail from using some of his suggestions) but approach it more like a biography than a how-to guide.
If you would like to purchase a copy of the book you can click this link, or the picture at the top of the post. All the links to Amazon are affiliate links, which means that a share of anything you spend after clicking on them goes to support my family and this blog.
