Stephen King's 22 Lessons on How to be a Great Writer

 Renowned author Stephen King has written over 50 books that have captivated millions of people around the world. In his memoir, ""On Writing," he shares valuable insights on how to be a better writer.

Lessons:

1. Stop watching television, instead read as much as possible.
2. Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you deal with.
3. Don't waste time trying to please people.
4. Write primarily for yourself.
5. Tackle the hardest things to write.
6. When writing, disconnect from the world.
7. Don't be pretentious.
8. Avoid adverbs and long paragraphs.
9. Don't get overly caught up in grammar
10. master the art of description.
11. Don't give too much backgound.
12. Tell stories about what people actually do.
13. Take risks.
14. Realize that you don't need drugs to be a good writer.
15. Don't try to steal someone else's voice.
16. Understand that writing is a form of telepathy.
17. Take your writing seriously.
18. Write every single day.
19. Finish your first draft in 3 months.
20. When you're finished writing,

"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented  individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work."

Stephen King

“It takes courage to quit something, but often you get that courage back with dividends.”

Mary Laura Philpott

Inspiration Writers

To be any type of writer it takes work, discipline, fortitude and a little aptitude doesn't hurt either, but to be an inspirational writer takes heart, and a lot of it. It can't just be a talent, it must also be a gift; you must endure the pain of the process. one must have a clear picture of self of who you really are and who you are to become, and most importantly who you are as a writer. 

A good story has got to entertain — or else it’s no good. There is a skill that’s involved, but it’s a learned skill. You must first be entertained by what you've written in order for others to be entertained by it. If it doesn't impress you, or give you certain emotions, then what do you expect the reader to feel?

Yes entertainment is necessary, but what sets inspirational writing apart from other genres is that it must also be transformational. Writing for and from the heart can be dangerous as the line from Fellowhip of the Rings goes, 

"It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to." 

J.J.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Keep your feet, be inspired...you can do it; write from your heart! 

"Fill your paper with breathings of your heart."

William Wordsworth

"No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of History."

William Hazlitt

“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”



― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Holy men tell us life is a mystery. They embrace that concept happily. But some mysteries bite and bark and come to get you in the dark.”

Dean Koontz

Mystery Writers, Pens Up!

James Patterson's Murder Mystery Club is back. Check out the latest mystery thriiller

A few mystery novels to get you hyped for summer pleasure reading

• The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold (loved the book, the movie didn't do it justice in my opinion)
• The Big Sleep-Raymond Chandler
• The Maid-Nita Prose
• The Paris Apartment-Lucy Foley

Just Thought You'd Like to Know

Harry Lewis Golden

May 6, 1902- October 2 1981

Harry Lewis Golden, author, journalist, and social critic, was born Harry Goldhirsch to a Jewish family in eastern Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1905 his parents, Leib and Anna Klein Goldhirsch, immigrated to New York City, where they settled on the Lower East Side with other immigrant families. Here, the family name was changed to Goldhurst. Leib Goldhurst became a Hebrew teacher and later editor of the Jewish Daily Forward. As a youth Golden developed an unquenchable appetite for reading; unabashedly he consumed volumes of literature, history, and social and political philosophy. After he graduated from public grade school in 1917, he enrolled in the East Side Evening High School and received his diploma three years later. He then attended night classes for three years at City College of New York, but left about 1922 without a degree. Although Golden liked school and excelled in his studies, his education was shaped as profoundly by his participation, from about 1918 to 1923, in the Round Table Literary Club, a discussion group for teenage boys founded by his employer, Oscar Geiger. Under Geiger's influence, Golden became a frequent soapbox speaker for Henry George's single-tax movement and for the Socialist party.

Throughout his boyhood, Golden worked peddling newspapers, manufacturing straw hats, and clerking in Geiger's fur business. After leaving college, he became a stock broker. He first was employed in his sister Clara's firm, but by 1926 he was established independently as head of the firm Kable and Company.  Golden became a best-selling author in 1958 with the publication of a collection of his essays entitled Only in America. In 1959 this book was adapted for presentation on Broadway by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. Golden also wrote an informal biography of his friend Carl Sandburg (Carl Sandburg, 1961). In 1969 he was honored by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with the establishment of a Harry Golden Lecture Series, which sponsored speeches by political liberals from 1971 through 1974. Golden was a member of the American Jewish Congress, the N.A.A.C.P., the Southern Regional Council, the Catholic Interracial Council, and B'nai B'rith. He was buried in the Hebrew Cemetery, Charlotte.

His marker is on 7th Street near Hawthorne Ln.

“The library, I believe, is the last of our public institutions to which you can go without credentials. You don't even need the sticker on your windshield that you need to get into the public beach. All you need is the willingness to read.”

“The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”

 Harry Golden