ON WRITING

Top Things I've learned from King's ON WRITING:

1) People just want to read a good story. Something that will keep them turning the pages.

2) If you want to be a writer, you don't need a formal education. You do need to read a lot and write a lot. A quote: "Reading is the creative center of a writer's life."

3) Reading a lot may be more than you think it is. He says he reads 70+ novels a year and considers himself a slow reader.

4) Don't write for the money. (yeah, I think we got this one!)

5) Adverbs are not your friend, especially in dialog attribution. "He said." "She said." These are all you need when tagging dialog.

6) Well written dialog will tell the reader much more about your character than straight narration. The trick is to be honest about the way your character would speak. If you think cussing will give you a one-way ticket to the fire house, but your character Billy Bob has been chewing tabacco and using the F-word since he was two, you better damn well let him speak his mind.

7) Write behind closed doors and have a goal in mind. (Daily word count, chapter, etc.)

8) If you hit Stephen King with your van and almost kill him, you may just die alone in your trailer from unknown causes. Wierd!