On Writing by Stephen King

On Writing is a memoir and writing guidebook written by King which exposes his personal life and how he's gotten to the point he is now and how he writes his brilliant New York Times Bestsellers!

Another 5-stars from King!

I picked up this book because I have a large fascination with King's writing. You see, when you read his "Dear Constant Readers.." segments before short stories and novellas or even watch interviews of King, you can really tell the man is intelligent. 

The way he talks, his passion for his writing, the ideas he discovers for his work is absolutely fascinating. 

Honestly, I genuinely adore King as a writer and a human himself so I was very excited to dive into this book. 

The first half of this book is a memoir of King's life. Believe it or not, before the writing fame, King was below middle class. Was raised by a single mother with his older brother, sent to multiple babysitters whilst his mom worked many jobs and was very poor. Stephen King is the portrayal of "started from the bottom and now we're here." 

You get a good look into his writing progress and his passion for it. What I truly adored was how King never gave up on his writing. He was passionate and hungry for it: which makes him a very successful writer himself. 

I also love how genuinely humble the man is. During his first huge big selling book, he bought his dream car but was too humble about driving it around his hometown so he traded it for an old car. 

The second part of the book is tips King gives writers to become successful.

I found this very useful and eye catching. I loved reading each of these tips and how he goes in depth in them. 

There are two pieces of advice from this book that I love and haven't forgotten since I've read them: the more you read, the better writer you become and write every day. Even it what you've written down isn't amazing, at least you have words down. 

Both of these pieces of advice have stuck to me and I've used them every day. 

I mean, reading, of course I do every day. But for writing, I'm usually a perfectionist. I was to get the best words and best scenes down in my first trial. But after reading this, I've accepted that a lot of my writing the first draft will not be amazing. And I need to edit and grow my writing from there.

Personally, I loved this book. I found it very insightful in not only this amazing writer's life but as writing ideas as well.

And perhaps you are not a writer or have no interests in writing, if you love King's Dear Constant Readers segments, I'm sure you'll love On Writing as well!

Since many of you love reading my reflection posts and a lot of you have been very supportive and eager with my writing process, I promised I would do writing updates on Instagram and writing reflections on my blog.

I felt like this was an outlet for myself to get down my writing memories for the future and even let you all in on my journey: the good and the bad. 

I've decided to write a new series on my blog, similar to Jess' Book Advice but with writing called: Writing With Jess.

Here I'll share all my writing reflections, little updates and much more!

With my first week of writing coming to an end, I decided to write a post on an little update and reflection! 

 At the beginning of the week, I had a base idea: I wanted to write horror, and needed to figure out what I wanted to write about, the setting, characters etc. and branch off from there.

And that point I was pretty lost as I didn't know what I wanted to include in my novel and how to make it as terrifying as possible and honestly, the first day was kind of a slump. 

Throughout the day, I would think of different ideas but none really stuck to me. I felt like ideas were approaching me but not sticking. These ideas almost felt like I thought they were cool, but not good enough to be in a debut novel. 

The next day, I woke up extra early, unintentionally which typically doesn't usually happen. But that morning I was motivated. I made myself a cup of coffee -- something I also don't typically do and I sat down and jot down ideas.

That morning I remember reading news articles which I tend to do and was inspired by an article I read. (I don't want to go in detail with the plot of my book until my book is published due to copyright reasons.)

After I read that article, ideas were bouncing off my head and the ideas were never ending: what if I add this, or this. What if this becomes this.

It was a phenomenal feeling. That day I believe I had my ideas on paper, an outline discovered, and a bit of the actual manuscript written down as well.

Since then, I've been waking up at the wee-early times, before the sun even rises and I write. I see so many authors state that you should write down anything, even if you aren't proud of it because you can edit them out later. And so I did.

I set myself a limit to write at least 2,500 words per day and so far I've been doing a pretty good job. Some days I miss the goal, some days I do exceptionally well.

I also noticed that since I've been very motivated lately, I've been waking up early and spending most of my days working and reading. Whether it was at my retail job, writing my book, on bookstagram or blogging.

Before this, I was depressed and unmotivated. I spent my days working my retail job and sleeping with the occasional blogging and bookstagram.

I also found myself to read a lot more than I usually do which is incredible. Because I've decided to limit my time on social media, I've spent a lot more time around books which I am loving.

So far, I think my writing journey is going swell and I'm very excited for the journey! My new goal for next week and further on in my journey is to explore the world a little more: go on walks, talk to people who know the history of certain towns a little more. Perhaps it will give me more inspirations.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon follows our 9 year-old main character Trisha whose parents recently split and her older brother is no longer getting along with their mother -- whom they currently have custody to. One day, Trisha's mother plans a hiking trip for herself, Trisha and Trisha's brother. As Trisha's mother and brother always do, they decided to argue during their hike, leaving the youngest daughter behind. Determined to get a few seconds of peace, Trisha takes a separate route, hoping to meet her brother and mother at the other side. But.. she doesn't. Trisha must find a way to escape the woods an find her way back to the road to safety.

As we're four months into 2018, I've realized I haven't really expressed any of my goals for 2018. And honestly, most of it was because I really wasn't sure if I was going to go through with it.

But as 2018 goes on and I'm starting to grow more as a person, I've realized what I really want and what I really need.

I love doing these reflection posts and all of my lovely readers seem to love reading them as well!

Growing up, I've always been on social media; I've based all my teenage years on the internet and on social media accounts such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc. and perhaps growing up this way really mentally drains you.

I'll admit that social media isn't something I hate as it brought and continues to bring so many opportunities for me; I've just come to the conclusion that I shouldn't be spending all my time on it.

To me, social media is almost like a void to another world -- it can bring good and bad. But when you're in this void for so long, it drains you and at some points eliminates your existence in reality.

I've noticed so many people on their phones for many hours of the day, ignoring the world around them.

I'll admit, I spend a fair amount of time on my phone as well but once someone tries to make conversation or wants to spend time with myself, my phone is away; when you're trying to talk to someone or even in public and you're unable to have a conversation with someone it can be quite irritating.

I recently watched a Joe Hill interview (yes, of course I have to bring the King family in my post like always) and he had discussed how being on social media for extended amounts of time makes him depressed and I agree. It feels as if you're disconnected from the world when you spend so much time on your devices.

My main goal for 2018 and perhaps for the rest of my life is the ability to not depend on my phone so much. I want to be able to leave my house and not worry about what other people are posting about.

I want to replace writing instead of social media. Meaning, instead of having an itch to check my phone, I want an itch to grab a note pad and write.

In Joe Hill's interview, he mentioned that he really enjoys this idea and would write excessively everywhere and that is my main goal.

He expressed how once he ditched the option of consistently checking his phone and pick up a pen and note pad realized how much he could write; the first time he brought a pen and notepad around with him instead of his phone, he filled up a whole notepad quickly. And once the notepad was finished, he used a placemat at a diner he was eating at.

I prefer to be more intuitive with literature than electronic devices. And perhaps if you've already been living this lifestyle for quite some time now, kudos to you! 

Like I said, I'm not giving up social media because honestly in this day and age, it's impossible to do so. I'll still be posting avidly on my blog and Instagram and perhaps Twitter as well. But I'd much rather prefer to spend most of my time writing and reading than spending most of my time on my phone.

For me, this might be a tough stretch of a goal but I'm willing and committed in doing so!