Ariele University: On Writing by Stephen King

If you’ve been following along for any period of time, you’re familiar with my Fake Master’s Degree in Creative Writing and Indie Publishing from Ariele University.

Well, good news! I think I’m going to graduate this year! As such, you’ll probably see a surge of posts about writing as I complete my remaining assignments. You’ll also hear about my thesis project, which is rapidly nearing completion.

Today, I bring you a few, very short thoughts on the book On Writing, by Stephen King.

A Few Thoughts About ON WRITING by Stephen King

For as long as I’ve been involved in the writing community, people have been recommending the book On Writing by Stephen King. It is held up as the ultimate book on writing, due in no small part to the fact that its title is literally On Writing, it is LITERALLY a book on writing. To this end, I resisted reading it for a long time. I was worried that since everyone loved it so much, I would be disappointed.

Eventually, after I started doing a lot of workshops and presentations, I decided I should suck it up and read the stupid book. After the hundredth time someone told me, “You really should read it! It changed my life!” After the thousandth workshop attendee questioned whether I had anything valuable to say because I hadn’t read On Writing by Stephen King. Besides, Stephen King is a legendary writer. It couldn’t be that bad, right?

So I read the book.

I was less disappointed than I thought I would be. The truth be told, I thought the first half of the book was by and large uninteresting, unless you wanted to read a biography (or an auto-biography) of Stephen King’s life. Which, of course, may be quite interesting to some people. But I was looking for useful, practical stuff, and ultimately, King’s rise to fame can likely never be repeated.

(To be fair, he does use the word “memoir” in the title, so that mis-alignment of expectations is on me.)

The second half of the book, however, proved to be a lot more interesting. I liked the switch from the first half, with the break where he talks about how he got hit by a car in the middle of writing the book and it made him reconsider where he had been going with the book to begin with. From that point forward, I found the book educational. I found myself agreeing with him on most issues, though I tend to take a slightly softer stance. For example, when he says that adverbs pave to the road to hell, well, that’s a bit over the top, really. It does explain why everyone in the writing world is so anti-adverbs though.

The thing I disliked the most was the prescriptive attitude, that “THIS is the way to write a book.” I think this is a problem in the writing industry as a whole, however, and I don’t really think that his version of it is worse than anyone else’s. But one day, I’d like to see someone famous write a book called, “You can write however you want: the only rule is that there are no rules.”

Ultimately, I would say that if you are looking for a book that goes in depth into King’s life, and has some helpful writing tidbits in the second half, then this book is for you. If you just want the writing tidbits, skip the first half; if you just want to know more about King, skip the second half.

And if you’re tired of people telling you what to do, skip it entirely.

The Art of Wandering

When I was a kid, my parents owned sixty acres of land in rural, upstate New York. We had a house, a barn, a shop, a chicken coop, myriad gardens, a pond, a forest, and a field. This setting offered much in the way of fuel for creative imaginations.

In the late spring, there was a patch of grass in the woods that was greener and lusher than all the other grasses around it, surrounded by a grove of beech trees. I used to wander up, lie down in the grass with my arms crossed over my chest, and imagine I was asleep, waiting for a prince to come and rescue me—very Anne of Green Gables-esque.

Photograph by Evan Sieling, (c) 2008

On the hill behind the house, my brother built a castle, complete with rock walls, two towers, and a half dozen garden beds. He even built a non-electric pump and a series of plastic piping to run water from the spring at the bottom of the hill into the garden, so he could water the plants and even have a couple fountains.

If this sounds magical to you, it was, except for the part where he used his younger siblings as free labor to carry rocks, rake away old leaves and pine needles, and weed the gardens. When I wasn’t participating in sibling-induced chores, I instead would lean against a rock wall, imagining a fog settling down around me as a wizard appeared from within the evergreens to tell me I had powers never-before-seen by anyone in this world. Or that I was trapped in the tower and had to save myself or die trying.

A babbling brook cut the property in half, and in the spring when the snow melted, all the water from the neighboring farmers’ fields rushed down, creating a tumultuous, roaring river that overflowed its banks in a swirling rush of foamy white. And on hot summer days, it trickled clean and clear, and we would dip our feet in to wash off the mud and help cool ourselves down.

A forest surrounded the rest of the property, with trails that meandered past the vegetable gardens, through the overgrown apple orchard, down by the only butternut tree, around the edges of the apiary, and back up to the top of the embankment that overlooked the deep, rocky gorge, which was on the neighbor’s property. In the spring, the swamp just past the birch tree and the lilacs would be alive with the bright yellows of marsh marigolds—the perfect hiding place for gnomes and hobgoblins. And the giants who lived just past the butternuts would often leave massive footprints in the mud.

Everything you could imagine existed in my sixty-acre world. Wizards and ghosts, princesses and talking owls, fantasy and romance and robots. I had imaginary friends galore, and named every fallen log and shallow hollow dug into a heap of last year’s dead leaves. I knew the trees by name, ate the wild berries and plants at my leisure, and noted every new mushroom or patch of moss that grew.

Sometimes we would sneak onto the neighbor’s property to listen to the frogs sing or wade in their larger creek. We would stage battles, shooting water guns at each other from the top of the embankment overlooking the spring. Or challenge each other to see who could wade out into the deepest mud of the swamp. We’d go swimming in the pond or stomping through the creek, and pull leeches off our legs after. We never wore shoes.

But the field was where I spent most of my time. In late summer, tall verdant grasses waved in the breeze, with red, yellow, and white flowers flashing their bright colors amid the green. In the early spring, before the snow had fully melted, steam would rise up from patches of ice, creating a low-level mist across the short, brown grass, and any figure seen in the distance looked like nothing more than a hazy, mystical silhouette. In the winter, the snowy landscape stretched out in a blinding white sheet as far as the eye could see, the sharp edges of distant tree branches grasping at the gray, overcast sky. And in fall, great round bales of hay lay scattered across the now short, brown grass, and the vibrant rusty reds and yellows of autumn created a vibrant border along the edges of the field.

Here, I could be anything. An abandoned farmer’s maid lost on the prairie. A world-weary traveler seeking rest. A mysterious figure in the fog, searching for the source of all magic. A lonely widow, longing for her lost love. An escaped damsel desperate for a way back home.

The field was the canvas and my imagination the paintbrush. All I had to do was fill it with stories.

###

I always jumped the three steps leading down from the back porch of the house. Then I would cross the driveway, which bridged the babbling brook. I would ramble past the herb gardens and across the road bisecting the property. Then stroll past the lower vegetable on the north side of the barn, and duck under the low-hanging branches of the walnut tree. Beyond the hedge, the field would stretch out for miles, and by the time I arrived, my parents and brothers and real life would be far behind me.

With every step, my mind wandered too. Of course I thought about normal kid and teenage stuff—school and boys and band and how mad I was at my little brother for constantly being noisy—but eventually, my mind would move onto stories. Any story was fair game, but often I focused on the stories from the books I’d taken from the library, or a scene from something I had to read for school.

But when those stories faded, then came the feelings. Scenes and moments and fables built based on me.

If I felt sad, I was lost and alone in the wilderness, the great emptiness of the field feeding the narrative I wove. If I was in love, I imagined him running toward me across the lush landscape, to wrap me in his arms and tell me he loved me. If I was angry, I cried furious tears and imagined that soil beneath my feet roiled and burned with my power. If I felt curiosity, I wondered about what grew around me, or if aliens would ever pick our field to land their ships, or if ghosts were really real.

All around me stories rose and fell, but none lasted much longer than the time I spent wandering.

When I returned home and walked up the three steps, life returned—my family, dinner, homework, chores, school, the stories left far behind me, now only faint traces in my memory.

###

It’s been many years since I wandered that field. I’ve wandered in other ways, of course. I’ve lived in five different states. I’ve climbed mountains and hiked trails. Visited to other countries.

I’ve explored many ideas, perspectives, philosophies.

I’ve started keeping track of the stories. Writing them down.

Wandering like that though, now happens rarely. Life is too heavy, and the world too crowded and full.

But wandering is still at the core of who I am. Even when I’m stuck in the middle of a busy city sidewalk, or in a meeting surrounded by people, or too tired to stroll down to the public trail that winds through farmer fields and along train tracks and through forests, I can close my eyes and imagine that I stand in the middle of my field surrounded by mist, or with the hot sun burning in the blue sky overhead, or amid tiny white flowers pushing their faces through the dense summer grasses; I can smell the crisp scent of honeysuckle on the air, hear the mourning doves cooing in the early morning light, feel the chill of the brisk breeze blowing a thunderstorm in from the south—and all around me, I can grow whatever stories I want.

The Great Unblocking: On Dealing With Creative Blocks

I haven’t experienced a significant creative block in a long time. I think because I have so many dang strategies for moving through and past it. I might feel “blocked” in the moment, or even for a few days. But nine times out of ten, all I need to do is put my butt in the chair and write, and the water starts flowing again.

But the last two years have been hard for a lot of people. I’ve read about writers who stayed blocked for all of 2020 and into 2021, and didn’t write for nearly two years. I know writers who were blocked for a month or two months or three. I know writers who got blocked when covid started, and are still there.

Abraham Piper recently released a tiktok video about how creativity comes in waves, and how that metaphor makes it easier to think of a block as being the low point before a new wave of creativity comes crashing down. Or something like that.

Which got me thinking about my strategies, and I realized that I don’t apply strategies willy-nilly. I have specific processes for determining which unblocking strategy to use and when. Which then led me to trying to outline my system so that perhaps I can use it more effectively next time I feel blocked.

And I’m putting it here because it might also help someone else.

I have a four-step process, that looks something like this:

1. Determine the type of block.

2. Select strategy for dealing specifically with that type of block.

3. Do the thing.

4. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

The rinse and repeat is really necessary, because I can often be plagued by than more than one thing at a time, so sometimes it requires multiple steps to clear out the blockage. And some of these strategies I now engage in on a regular basis, whether or not I’m feeling blocked, because on-going maintenance is good for avoiding coming to a complete standstill.

Types of Writer’s Block

In my experience, there are three types of writer’s block: Emotional, Intellectual, and External.

(As an aside, I experience the same blocks in all of my creative life, whether I’m drawing or playing music or whatever.)

Emotional writer’s block is when you can’t write because of internal forces—mainly, the way you feel. It might include being anxious or stressed, feeling overwhelmed, being sad, being distracted by good things, feeling like you just can't, imposter syndrome, feeling worthless or as though your art is worthless, ADHD, depression, physical pain, lack of sleep, period moodiness, certain medications which affect your mood, and any condition that has an impact on how you feel.

Intellectual writer’s block is when you have a problem you can’t solve, usually relating to your work or story. It might include things like not knowing where the plot goes next, feeling like your character is behaving inconsistently, feeling like something is wrong with your book but you don't know what, knowing you need to do more research but you don't want to or don't know where to find the information you need, wondering if this project really fits into your business plan or not—any problem that requires using your mind to overcome.

External writer’s block is anything happening to disrupt you over which you have no or limited control. It might include things like loud kids, a jackhammer outside, the dog barking, your house needing to be cleaned, your full time job or spouse needing attention, your printer not working so you can't print your manuscript, phone calls—pretty much anything not writing-related that is vying for your attention.

Understanding potential causes of your writer’s block is helpful because not all strategies work equally and their effectiveness depends on the problem. Locking yourself in a quiet, peaceful room won’t help if the problem is that you’re feeling lonely. Drinking a cup of tea to relax won’t help if the real problem is that you have no idea how to fix a plot hole. Going to a coffee shop to work won’t help if you’re upset because a close friend just died.

In addition, some of these problems may overlap. Lack of sleep might be making it hard to solve a plot problem. Physical pain might mean you have more doctor’s appointments. Feeling sad about a family death may also lead to more phone calls, therapy, and more chaos in your house and life.

But at least trying to pinpoint and identify what is causing your block will give you a starting place from which you can begin to find a solution.

Selecting & Engaging A Strategy

If you absolutely know what type of blocking you’re experiencing, then pick a strategy and go for it. If it doesn’t work, try something else. At this point in my career, my strategies tend to be the same most of the time: mute discord, go to a different room, or pick a different project to work on.

Unfortunately, the problem with selecting a strategy can have some complications.

For example, let’s say your problem is loud kids. Here’s the thing: you can’t get rid of your kids. So finding space and quiet to write is more of an ongoing, long-term project. It might mean renting office space, or setting up a quiet corner in your basement, or setting up “writing time” where the kids have to read quietly while you work. It might mean scheduling the babysitter once a week so you can go to a coffee shop.

And what solution you choose will depend on your life, needs, resources, and specific situation. Not everyone has the money to rent an office, for example, or the space to set up an office in their home. Not everyone has the means to hire a babysitter for the purposes of peace and quiet.

So some of these challenges might take a while to figure out, and sometimes, the answer is simply waiting—putting a project on the backburner until you have the mental, physical, and emotional space to engage with your creative self.

In addition, sometimes the blocking is multi-layered. You may find quiet space to write even with your kids around, but what if you run into a plot problem? Or what if you sit down and discover that you’re sad or lonely? Getting rid of one type of block may simply reveal another.

This is where maintenance comes in. You can engage in unblocking activities even when you’re not feeling blocked. Think of it like running draino down the sink once a week (or once a month) even if you don’t have a clog. It’ll clear up some of the build-up in the pipes, decreasing the chance of you getting a clog at all.

Maintenance strategies will vary from person to person, of course, and will depend on the types of blocking you experience most often. For me, I mostly experience emotional blocks and occasionally intellectual ones. I live a quiet, introverted life with no kids, so external blocks are kept to a minimum.

A few maintenance strategies I engage in: going to therapy, reading books on writing, reading books on self-help, exercising as much as I can, trying to eat food that feels good, taking time to relax, going for regular walks, engaging with the writing community on a regular basis, doing art and playing piano, leaving myself space to think about things that are upsetting me. Consistently and regularly working on strategies to improve myself, my mind, and my emotions. Exploring philosophy. Giving workshops on writing, attending conferences, and supporting other writers.

All of these things help keep potential blocks from creeping in. And while sometimes blocks do still occur, they’re usually smaller, easier to clear out, and less frequent.

Rinse and Repeat

I think it can often seem like “If I just get past this creative block, I’ll be fixed!” but that’s not really the way it works. Like Abraham Piper said, it comes in waves—bursts of creativity and low lows both come in waves. So, in my opinion, it’s better to be prepared when the next bout of writer’s block comes knocking than to be knocked over and unable to get back on your feet.

Becoming and staying unblocked is an ongoing process, one that you will likely deal with over the course of your life to varying degrees.

The thing I like to remind myself when I’m in the middle of one, no matter how long it’s going on, is that when I look back at previous blocked periods, I came through every one. Every one ended. And so I choose to believe that this one will end too.

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On Absurdism: Part 4

When a waterfall of pain starts in your abdomen and sparkles up through your chest and down into your legs, it’s easy to wonder, “Why is this happening?” And of course, there is a scientific explanation for such an occurrence, if your doctors are smart enough to figure it out. But when people ask “Why?” I think more often they are asking a metaphysical question—Why does this happen to anyone ever? Why is this happening to me? Why exactly does the universe or god or whatever great intelligence I believe in think that this is okay? Why can’t or won’t they fix it?

Absurdism, however, offers something different. Freedom from the why.

On one hand, thinking it doesn’t matter (everything is meaningless, after all) can seem overwhelming or depressing. But on the other hand, it frees you from thinking about this question at all.

“Why is this happening?” becomes irrelevant. All that is relevant is, “This is happening, so what are my options for moving forward?” And you could argue that even this line of thinking is more-or-less irrelevant, in the grand sense. (Though, how you move forward absolutely does matter in the immediate and personal sense.)

Of course, freedom from the why doesn’t also equal freedom from the irritation, the anger, the frustration, the sadness, the grief, or whatever other emotions might be wrapped up in moments of pain.

But it does create a parallel between you and literally everything else in the universe. A connection point.

Though, my dog might actually be wondering why he isn’t being petted right now…

A tree doesn’t sit and wonder why humans are cutting it down or why the universe would allow such a terrible thing to happen. (At least, I imagine this is the case—I suppose it is possible trees have this sort of intellectual capacity and we just don’t know it.) The tree doesn’t wonder why its roots are rotting or fungus is infecting its trunk, or why the sun hasn’t come out in weeks. Deer don’t wonder why their water tastes like poison or why they’re being shot by a hunter or eaten by a wolf. Grass doesn’t wonder why the blade of the lawnmower slices its head off every week (or every three weeks at my house lol), dirt doesn’t wonder why it’s being torn up to make it easier to plant seeds, seeds don’t wonder why they’re being coated in pesticides, bugs don’t wonder why they are dying when they eat a plant that should be a perfectly acceptable food source to them.

Not wondering about The Meaning saves a lot of time and energy for a different kind of wondering, about more interesting things. Like wondering at the way the light shines through the leaves of the tree creating gently dappled shadows below. Or at how the lightning sparkles and lights up clouds the size of mountains with every bolt. Or at how big the sky is compared to a human, and the size of the universe as a whole. Or wondering about how time works. Or at the fact that somehow, all of infinity fits in the area of a circle where r = 1.

The why becomes less and less interesting, and the what is becomes more so.

For me, I find this process also helps with processing loss and death. No longer does it matter why Deidre died. Or why my grandmother died. Or why anyone died.

All that matters is that they did. And it’s okay. And my pain and sorrow and loss is okay too. I can look back and see the fullness of their life, no matter how long and short—I can see that they were. And they always were, and neither time nor death nor lack of meaning can take away their existence or the impact they had on my life.

I can see all of who I knew them to be, and keep my vision of them close. I can celebrate who they were, treasure who they were, and remember them as I knew them to be.

And I can leave the agony of why behind me and live in the comfort of what is.

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On Covid Again

Almost a year ago, I wrote an article titled On Covid.

The first paragraph went like this:

As of today, over 10 million people in the US have had the disease, and almost 250k people have died from it. Even if you love conspiracies and are like, “that’s not true, only 50,000 people have died from it!” or whatever number you’re throwing around—it doesn’t change the logic. Because those lives were still important. They were still somebody’s child, somebody’s parent, somebody’s grandparent. And there are a lot of them.

This year, I’d like to write the same post, but from the perspective of a year removed, and from the perspective of someone who is done with conspiracies. No longer will I entertain them. Too many people are dead.

As of today, nearly 50 million people in the US have had COVID-19 and 757 thousand people have died from it. Three times where we were at last year. 5 million people worldwide have died. 5 million! And 250 million people worldwide have gotten sick. These numbers, to me, are nearly unfathomable. Staggering. 32k people in the state of Pennsylvania alone (where I live now) have died. And researchers are suggesting that half of the people who get covid will deal with long-covid symptoms to some degree.

Half. Which means that if you get covid, you have a 50/50 chance of long covid.

This year, we also have vaccinations to measure. 193 million people in the US have been fully vaccinated. Vaccines for children were just approved by the FDA. But we’re still only hovering around 58% vaccinated in the country—and only 53% in my county, compared to the 61% state average. Half.

It isn’t enough. At this rate, there will be no herd immunity. Only wave after wave of variants. We’ll need new vaccines to combat the new variants. All those pandemic apocalypse movies are coming true. It’s just slower than we writers like to imagine it. Like a slow-motion tsunami, so huge you can’t hope outrun it. A nightmare from which there is no escape.

And the people most disenfranchised by society—disabled people, people of color, people without homes, people who are poor—they’re the most at risk. They are taking the brunt of this catastrophe.

And I’m tired. It’s a different kind of tiredness than I’ve experienced in my 33 years. I’m tired of feeling like other people don’t care. Of going to the grocery store and being the only person wearing a mask. Of feeling like I have to defend my choices to not attend large gatherings—or even small ones. I’m tired of feeling guilty for not spending time with friends. For not having the courage to go out and make new ones.

I’m tired of explaining that no one is entitled to my presence. Not in regular life, and certainly not during a pandemic. That I am not obligated to risk my health and well-being, nor to risk someone else’s health and well-being, just for “together” time.

I know that others think holidays are important. Traditions are important. Families are important. Friends are important. But not more important than staying alive. And there are other ways. Letters. Zoom. Small gatherings outdoors. But it seems that precautions have been thrown out the window. I get dirty looks for using hand sanitizer in the grocery store.

And every decision involving other people requires a magnitude of mental math. Calculations upon calculations. What is the risk? What do I want? What are the options? How important is what I want to do compared to the risk? Are we in a surge? What do hospitals look like right now? How are vaccines coming along? I’m vaccinated—are they? How do I know? What are my health concerns? What are theirs? Am I putting them at risk? Should I get tested? Do I quarantine? Before? After? Both? And if I do feel comfortable, where does my comfort end? How do I set boundaries? Does the situation offer me the ability to back out if I feel unsafe?

I’ve experimented with my comfort zone. Tried out things I thought would make me uncomfortable (hint: they did). I’ve skipped events I really wanted to attend. (Yes, it made me sad.) I’ve had in-depth conversations about the risk and other people in my life’s comfort with engagement.

The math is exhausting. And the problem is that there’s no single equation I can run. There’s no right answer. There are too many variables and they’re always changing. Most of the time, it’s easier to just stay home.

And yet… every week, it seems the pandemic is creeping closer. In the early days, it was four degrees of separation between me and a person who’d contracted the disease. Then three degrees of separation. Then two degrees. Now it’s one degree. Cousins. Friends. Other writers I know.

And I can’t help but wonder: when will it be me?