It occurred to me after writing that blog post that maybe some of my readers might care to hear the words from the man himself.  So here are a few YouTube videos of Stephen expressing himself on the subject.

There were some truly funny comments in that video and if you just clicked past it you missed some great stuff for any aspiring writer!

Where does Stephen King get his ideas for novels from?

Another good video, with admittedly slightly iffy sound/picture quality.

And finally, probably the best, although it is from a commercial source and so is cut short.

Stephen talking about novels, short story writing and the problems of writing them.

Did you know that Misery and Gerald’s Game were originally conceived of as short stories?  It seems that he finds a problem writing short stories now, as since he became a full time professional writer his mind has become conditioned to writing longer material.

Stephen King is a modern master craftsman of the writing profession.  He proves that it not just possible to make money from writing but that it is also possible to become exceedingly rich.  While it may not be likely for everyone to be this successful, I find it useful to hear those that have been exceptionally successful speak about their subject.

Maybe some of the “stardust” will rub off?

Dave Felton

Many professional writers offer advice on the importance of persistence and I can see why it could be important for the feckless personality (meaning myself here!) that would want to be a writer.  Unfortunately, sometimes nature steps into things and she will not be denied.  On the night of the 14th my previous ill health made a brief reappearance and while it wasn’t anything serious, it was enough to cause some concern and a sleepless night.  This meant that yesterdays post did not appear as I spent most of the day recovering from the events of the previous night.

As I may not have control over when I post, what I will do instead, is post another two today, as well as this one.  Thus honoring persistence even if I cannot honor my planned scheduling.

A good thing about writing articles for the web is that WordPress has the ability to schedule blog post releases.  I guess I should write more articles in advance.  Lesson learned.

Dave Felton

After watching this video two things really struck me:

1. The importance of sticking at writing, even if you might suck.  The point here being that you are, or should be, writing for your own personal pleasure.
2. The fact that eventually he wrote a truly beautiful story from “inside”.

Since I started following the advice to write daily, regardless of circumstance, the whole task has indeed got a lot easier.  I am not sure that the standard of my writing has improved much yet, but the volume of words produced means that you worry less over your “darlings”.  As you worry less about acquiring some sort of mythical writing perfection I have found that writing becomes a lot more enjoyable and this in turn means you write more and so on.

If you don’t write, you aren’t a writer.

Of course none of this advice will be new to anyone that has read my earlier book review of Dorothea Brande’s book “On Becoming a Writer”.

Best wishes as ever.

Dave Felton.

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” – attributed to Robert Heinlein in his 1966 book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  It is a great book.  Buy it and read it if you haven’t already.

When I set out writing this blog one of the things that I fully intended to avoid was giving bad or unsound advice.  Therefore as a beginning writer I feel that I have no business writing “How to” articles for example.  Unfortunately I nearly broke my own code recently in a fit of enthusiasm.

Every day I trawl the internet for ideas for this blog; creative writing, science fiction, general education and such like.  As is typical for the internet some of what I come across is rubbish and occasionally some of it is gold.

Well, I recently came across what I thought was gold and was tempted to blog about it here.  Of course the idea seems like a good one and there is a huge urge to share, but I have absolutely zero idea if it actually works!

While I was writing a long and enthusiastic post Heinlein’s words were ringing in my ears along with other wisdom such as “If it looks too good to be true, then it probably IS too good to be true”.  Maybe the cynical old goat in me won in the end.  Accordingly, I will explore the truth or otherwise of the situation and only post when I have some facts.

So what was my great idea?  It is hardly a new one, but it is something that I hadn’t actually seriously considered before.  It relates to writing articles online for cash, for sites like:

http://hubpages.com/

At the moment I am writing maybe one blog post a day, one short story a month and a novel maybe later this year.  The blog is mostly a labour of love, although I might kid myself it will help me become better known.  The short stories, even if all were published they will net me maybe £2-300 each.  The novel and its mythical advance payment is a totally unknown item.  None of these things are going to reliably feed me.

The sensible side of me knows that if I am to earn a living as a writer (one of my long term goals) then it will likely be damn hard work, so when a website offers me hard work and a little cash I jumped at the idea – only later considering if it was a real offer and not just hype and a con job.  Even writing this now I am no wiser.  The only solution is to try it and see.  Maybe I can make some lunch money?