This last week I started reading Stephen King’s book On Writing.
I’ve wanted to read the book for more than ten years now.
I first read a passage from the book in an issue of Reader’s Digest many years ago.
I have a somewhat secret fascination with Stephen King.
In the Reader’s Digest passage, King shares the story of his first great successful book Carrie.
I won’t share any details about what he writes.
It’s a magnificent story that is best told by Stephen King.
Take the time to read it.
I was born in Bar Harbor but only lived in Maine for a few months before my parents shipped off to Tuscon, Arizona, so my father could get his college degree.
While I haven’t spent much of my life in Maine, I still feel great pride in being born in Vacationland.
Many summers, my mother would take my siblings and me to visit Bangor, Maine.
I have so many happy memories of my visits to Bangor.
I still remember first hearing that Stephen King lived in Bangor.
My aunts would talk about how the house is painted crimson like blood.
On each of our summer trips, we made sure to travel down to Broadway and gawk at Stephen King’s house.
I wasn’t much of a reader while growing up.
I always preferred playing baseball or football with my friends.
I’ve always been a slow reader and found that I lost patience quickly with my reading pace.
Despite my lack of reading acumen, I always had great fun writing.
One of the things I’m most proud of this last year is my writing streak.
On July 1, 2019, I began that writing streak, and I’ve written and published a blog post every day since.
Now that I’m a writer, I’ve sought to learn from one of the most successful writers of my lifetime.
Anyone that seeks to become skilled at writing would do themselves a favor and spend some time reading Stephen King’s On Writing.
It’s a delightful read, and I’m amazed at some of the word pictures Stephen King puts on the pages of that book.
I also get a kick out of how forthright Stephen King.
In one story, he shares about how nice it would be to spend time on a couple of day writing retreat and meet in the evening to discuss the day’s writings with the other writing retreat attendees.
“However, talking about writing,” King says, “is probably a waste of time. Why talk about writing when you should just spend time writing!”
He shares further guidance when he states that if you want to become good at writing, you need to spend four to six hours reading and writing every day.
If you aren’t willing to commit four to six hours a day to the craft, then you’re not serious.
Perhaps one of my favorite quotes from the book is the following.
“Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head.”
We’ve all been given a gift.
We spend the first part of our life trying to discover what that gift.
Blessed is the person that finds that gift.
We should spend the second part of our life sharing that gift with the world.
Before I end this article, I wanted to ask you if you’re looking to grow your business profits and having more cash in the bank, send me an email at damon@idealmoneylife.com with “PROFIT” in the subject line… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details!
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