(no subject)

[louiselux]

Been scuttling about finding all these litle lj corners today, while I should have been working. How satisfying. Stiil can't get Torch's story out of my head, I'm going to have to read it again, in peace this time, rather than at work where there are roughly a gazillion interruptions. I was thrilled when I read 'On writing' by Stephen King, and he used the same joke. Oh, what joke I can hear you say. 'Roughly a gazillion' of course. How funny is that? The silence is deafening.

It's fun being on lists, but sometimes I wonder what the people do who post lots and lots. Where do they find the time? It takes long enought to read the blasted things, never mind come up with intelligent and interesting replies. I suppose the answer to that is that a lot of replies are neither intelligent or interesting. Well, that's that sorted out then. But no, because there are some who can seemingly come up with reams of fascinating stuff.

Exercise time.

Comments

[askance.livejournal.com]

Stephen King is an author you love or hate. Me, I admire his ability to create characters that live and situations that make me hear noises in the dark. His sheer volume of writing is amazing too.

I've always associated people who are prolific with being crap writers; at least that's the way it turns out on many fanfic lists. Does he talk about that in his book? I've wondered whether it's worth tracking down...

Personally, I find I have to read everything that's been posted on a subject before composing a reply, so usually anything original that I might say has been said. 'Me too' posts are one thing I will not do.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Exactly, I don't like sending one line posts either just to show that I agree with a point. It takes me a while to formulate an argument, and everyone gets in before me so I usually end up not posting.

I know I've read an article before about King's opinion's on prolific and non-prolific writers, but I don't rememeber anything in 'on writing' specifically. He said (I think) that he doesn't understand those writers who only turn out one book per decade -he can't understand what they are doing with their time. His view is (and he was clear about saying it was only his view): you sit down and write, everyday until it's finished, and then rewrite. You don't get up and wander off for a day, week, month, whatever, because then you loose the flow of the story and it 'goes cold'. For him, being prolific is merely a by-product of working hard as a writer. Admittedly, his quality wobbled badly in the 80's-90's, but I loved his last 3 books. Another interesting King snippet. It took him years to realise that The Shining was about himself and alchohol. (He was an alcholic when he wrote it.) He just thought he'd written a pretty good scary story.