7 POWERFUL LESSONS FOR WRITERS FROM "ON WRITING" BY STEPHEN KING 

1. YOUR FIRST WORK WILL NOT BE YOUR BEST

We shouldn’t be concerned about the first things we write, nor expect them to be gold.

We should write and know that the next thing we write will be even better.

2. DON’T WORRY ABOUT GRAMMAR OR ANYTHING ELSE TECHNICAL

"The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story. I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing." 

3. SURROUND YOURSELF WITH SUPPORTIVE PEOPLE

Stephen found success in his first works as his mother paid him for his first short stories, believing he had a gift that should be rewarded. She told him to not sign up for the army because “You can’t write if you are dead.” and she shared his work with anyone who would read it. When he was eleven his mother, struggling to make ends meet to feed her family, bought him his first typewriter for Christmas. Stephen King’s mother was his first fan. After writing the first draft of his first bestseller, Carrie, King threw it away, it was his wife who saved it and forced him to publish it. Surround yourself with people who support you. 

4. GOOD READERS MAKE GOOD WRITERS

"Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut." 

5. IF YOU WRITE SOMEONE WILL SAY YOUR WORK STINKS

"I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all." 

6. ACCEPT FAILURE AS PART OF THE JOURNEY 

Stephen King failed several times, he almost gave up. “When I got the rejection slip from AHMM, I pounded a nail into the wall above the Webcor, wrote “Happy Stamps” on the rejection slip, and poked it onto the nail […]By the time I was fourteen the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing. By the time I was sixteen I’d begun to get rejection slips with handwritten notes a little more encouraging. " 

7. START TODAY

"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work." 

Write. Write poorly, but write. Write on your bad days and on your good days. Write anywhere, anytime, anyday. 

Write on any material you can find. Start today.