By Dennis Mellersh

Stephen King has some strong opinions on how you approach the work of creative writing.

In his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (1) King says:

“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair __ the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart.”

You can come to your writing with some strong attitudes:

“You can come to the act [of writing] with your fists clenched, and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass..you can come to it because you want to change the world…”

“Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again. You must not come lightly to the blank page.”

King says he’s not asking you to write reverently, to be politically correct, or to write unquestioningly, or throw out your sense of humor.

But he is asking us to be serious about doing it:

“This isn’t a popularity contest, it’s not the moral Olymp[ics, and it’s not church…but it’s writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner.”

King’s book “On Writing” is one of the books about writing and other aspects of the creative process in my overall book collection.

I’m hoping to review King’s book “On Writing” in a future post.

(1) Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Scribner, New York, 2000