Stephen King

"A permission slip [to write]: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will." (artist)

— Stephen King (artwork by David Sipress)

for Creatives  |  creating isn't easy, creative fear, writing, Stephen King, cartoon, drawing/illustration, David Sipress

"Every aspiring writer should read The Elements of Style."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  books, nonfiction, language, writing, Stephen King, never stop LEARNING, William Strunk Jr.

Follow Your Curiosity

"Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  reading, create for YOURSELF, artist integrity, culture, Stephen King, the creative life

"I usually listen to [a book] in the car (always unabridged; I think abridged audiobooks are the pits), and carry another wherever I go. You just never know when you'll want an escape hatch."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  books, Stephen King, value the art, audio books

"We are writers, and we never ask one another where we get our ideas; we know we don't know."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  magic/mystery of creating/art, writing, inspiration/the muse, ideas, Stephen King

"It makes them happy to give [lifetime achievement awards] to me. And they go out in the shed, but the people don't know that."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  awards, create for YOURSELF, the successful artist, writing, Stephen King

"I sit down maybe at quarter past eight in the morning and I work until quarter to twelve and for that period of time, everything is real. And then it just clicks off. I think I probably write about twelve hundred to fifteen hundred words. It's six pages. I want to get six pages into hard copy."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  writing, word count, Stephen King, the creative life

"You can tell without even reading if the book you've chosen is apt to be easy or hard, right? Easy books contain lots of short paragraphs—including dialogue paragraphs which may only be a word or two long—and lots of white space. They're as airy as Dairy Queen ice cream cones. Hard books, ones full of ideas, narration, or description, have a stouter look. A packed look. Paragraphs are almost as important for how they look as for what they say; they are maps of intent."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  reading, books, writing, Stephen King

"'Don't read other authors while you're writing, or you'll end up sounding just like them.'  IF this were true, everyone would be reading Stephen King while writing their horror novels and we'd have oodles of people making 8 gazillion dollars because they sound a lot like Stephen King."

— Ryan G. Van Cleave

for Creatives  |  reading, creative process, writing, artist's voice, Stephen King, Ryan G. Van Cleave

"When I wrote it, it was all just there for me. You just take it. Everything just fits together like it existed before."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, writing, creating in the moment, Stephen King

"No one could say that [Stephen King's] work is short of storytelling, but he plots very little."

— Marcel Theroux

for Creatives  |  structured writing & plotting/outlining, intuitive writing & pantsing, pantsing vs. plotting, writing, storytelling, Stephen King, Kelly Marcel

"Books are a uniquely portable magic."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  books, magic/mystery of creating/art, Stephen King, value the art

"They pay me absurd amounts of money for something that I would do for free."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  create for YOURSELF, artist integrity, the successful artist, writing, Stephen King, value the art

"A novel like The Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings of despair and good old-fashioned jealousy—'I'll never be able to write anything that good, not if I live to be a thousand'—but such feelings can also serve as a spur, goading the writer to work harder and aim higher."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  books, creating isn't easy, creative fear, novel writing, writing, KEEP CREATING, Stephen King, never stop LEARNING, John Steinbeck

Follow Your Curiosity

"I don't want to say I have the common touch, but I am just a common person, and I have this one talent that I use."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  artist integrity, writing, reaching your audience, Stephen King

"I did this book Different Seasons, they were stories that I had written like I write all of them, I get this idea, and I want to write this."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  books, intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, create for YOURSELF, short stories, thriller, suspense, horror, ideas, Stephen King

Follow Your Curiosity

"I never thought of myself as a horror writer. That's what other people think. And I never said jack shit about it. [My wife] came from nothing, I came from nothing, we were terrified that they would take this thing away from us. So if the people wanted to say 'You're this,' as long as the books sold, that was fine. I thought, I am going to zip my lip and write what I wanted to write."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  create for YOURSELF, artist integrity, novel writing, horror, writing, Stephen King, genre, creative freedom

"A short story is a different thing altogether—a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  short stories, writing, Stephen King

"When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  creative process, writing, KEEP CREATING, Stephen King

"Good books don't give up all their secrets at once."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  books, novel writing, writing, Stephen King

"Some books, because [Stephen King] has a critical following, people tear apart—but the next book might be considered an instant classic.  He's not afraid."

— Lisa Gardner

for Creatives  |  create for YOURSELF, artist integrity, creative fear, novel writing, reviews, Stephen King, Lisa Gardner

"Making people believe the unbelievable is no trick; it's work."

— Stephen King

for Creatives  |  creating isn't easy, writing, Stephen King

"I think it was Stephen King who said you can choose to be an author or a writer, and that's a paraphrase, but the idea makes sense to me.  It's really cool to be an author and swan around, and, you know, people clap, but if you do too much of that, you can't write.  At least, I can't.  And so that's how you can do three books a year, and not go crazy—in fact, feel the happiest and the luckiest you've ever, ever felt."

— Lisa Scottoline

for Creatives  |  the successful artist, writing, Lisa Scottoline, Stephen King

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