On Writing #3

Well, maybe it was just the middle section. This last bit was actually pretty readable (Is that even a word? Oh well, is now if it wasn't!). King had some pretty good analogies that made this section MUCH more logical and easy to read. He gives some good advice on how to edit a book that you're writing. I love his views about not quitting:  “Only God gets it right the first time” and “Someone really did design the Titanic and then label it unsinkable”. Mistakes happen and they’re good for writing, and I love that he acknowledges that as a simple fact. I also like his idea to write FOR someone specific, in his words, the ideal reader. It makes things a lot simpler because then you know you’ll have someone to please and someone to focus on when writing the book, because your own words might sound good to you, but not to yourself.  The length section gives a simple description on how much shorter a second draft should be. The formula provided (2^nd Draft = 1^st Draft – 10%) was pretty unique.   But, as everyone probably writes about, the wreck section was the most interesting. His vivid details and views on the whole thing were very simplistic and not actually very angrily written. He seemed to remain calm, and I love his passion for writing remained even through the accident. The book was overall really good, minus the boring parts in the middle, and I did learn a lot about writing. Maybe when I’m a politician writing about my life (with Porkchop!), it’ll come in handy!

State of Union Address

Obama's State of Union address had moments of interest and some good points, but I tried falling asleep about 8:45, and I don't honestly believe he'll follow through with the ideas he had that were pretty good. By starting off with the military situation of no soldiers in Iraq, he was smart in doing something interesting and sneaking into American values and economy with the WWII referencing. His economy plan is to move forward, and he wants to bring manufacturing back into the US. I actually agreed with his idea of business in America. The idea of tax deductions of businesses who stay at home instead of outsourcing is actually a wise idea that many Americans would agree with, but I still feel as though he won't follow through, but I do also agree with his beliefs on teaching and schools. Working on keeping good teachers, rewarding fantastic ones, and firing the ones who aren't helping students is pretty smart, but the thing I agree most with is the dropout idea. Not being allowed to until graduation or age 18 in every state is the best and most logical thing he has tried pushing for in his campaign. However, I disagree with some points such as his discussing "betting" on peoples' jobs during the auto crisis, or some of his ideas on immigrants. I don't believe we should make all the immigrants who have been living illegally in America citizens now. With the oil discussion, he became incredibly repetitive in his feelings on we should have cleaner energy, which is the point I started wanting to sleep.

The debt discussion was kind of aggravating. $250,000 is struggling? Uh, no. Coming from a household of MAYBE $40,000 a year, I am terribly biased on that, I'm sorry. But I disagree. I don't think he should punish the wealthy for being so, and that's what he sounds like he is doing, even though he is wealthy himself. His plan is supposed to benefit the poor, but not improve their lives. Instead of his plans on reducing the deficit with taxes, his jobs that he discussed opening should be more than minimum wage jobs, and should open up better Welfare options. I DO agree when he said Washington was broken. Another thing I noticed that was Republicans, McCain specifically, did not really applaud or anything until Obama stated he agreed with Republican Abe Lincoln. I don't really have anything much to say on his discussions after that moment, because it just seems like something you can expect from a politician and nothing new. His plan to create a Veterans Job Corp is nothing new, and already exists in that most already are doing jobs he mentioned. The speech ended, but I really did not honestly gain anything from this, or have a new image of Obama. It seemed like a typical Obama speech, with nothing that really stood out, other than his campaigning for presidency.

***I am not and have never been an Obama supporter. Things like this just remind me why. Typical politician, nothing from the heart, as though he was just checking off a list that people EXPECT him to talk about.

On Writing #2

Well, this section was… Not exactly boring, but I really could not keep my attention on it. The humorous comments were the main reason that I kept reading and trying to maintain any sort of focus. The comparison of writing to telepathy is pretty unique though. Although I must admit, right before the toolbox section, he said we should do something more productive like wash a car, and I really rather would be, because after that first section, he gets incredibly repetitive. He also seems like, in the “Toolbox” section, he expects the audience of the book to be older, more experienced readers. He even states that “this isn’t high school”. Sorry Mr. King, but it is! Anyway, I appreciated the lack of massive grammar section, but he was wise to state clearly that noun and verb sentences were acceptable if you can get away with it. I lost all interest in the sections following, but with quotes like “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs”, it was made clear how he felt about the specifics of grammar. The “On Writing” section was incredibly hard to get through. I could not get through any of the paragraphs with any focus, because his language was so varied and made references I did not understand (Ex: Ephemeral craving vs. quacking box). He did delve into some deep meanings in what writing is and should be, though. The only thing that I really got from what I’ve read from this section is that good writing is better than TV, and that writing requires good description, I’m not going to lie.  Maybe it was just a bad attempt at reading, but I'm not really sure.

On Writing #1

I’ve been a Stephen King fan long before this book, just putting that out there, and this book reminds me why I love to read his stories. On Writing begins with a not so classic, very humorous description of his life. The second foreword, which describes most books about writing as "filled with b********", and that pretty much sums up my opinion of them and well, most stories about a person's life as well. But I actually have really enjoyed these first hundred pages, because they are not what I would normally expect. I don't imagine writing books as being full of words that I cannot even type on a school paper, no matter how much I would LOVE to quote some of this. But I very much relate to some of this that he's written. Such as about his "stripe throat", haha, I go through that EVERY year, right now unfortunately to be honest. But with the needle stuff, no way, I shuddered. WORST part of the book. I hate needles. He didn't make it any easier to read with all those descriptions either. "Loud kissing sound" and "hot fluid" do not make needles sound any more appealing. I must admit though, I laughed at the part about poison ivy. I'm not allergic to it, so I find it even funnier, because I can't relate to that. I didn't really care much about his publishing stories though, even though I'm pretty sure that's what I'm supposed to care about. The stories about his ideas for books and how he got rejected constantly and so on just didn't appeal to or impress me. I mean, it's not that I don't, oh I can't remember the word so we'll go with appreciate, that he kept trying despite the rejection he got into; it just did not matter much to me to read. The stories about the newspapers in school or when he wrote the book on "The Pit and the Pendulum", however, were much more interesting and therefore, kept my attention on them. I'm going to admit right here though, that I did not do the annotations during the reading process (I’m re-reading to them). I did mark one thing during my reading though, and that's because it made me laugh. But that's far from being appropriate to type; it's the "killing for peace..." quote. It makes sense to me! And I must say, that’s the one line I showed my parents, and they laughed at it too (both are Stephen King fans as well).