Stephen King On Writing

Last semester for one of my first intro to creative writing classes we had a book call, Stephen King On Creative Writing. And no I couldn't come up with a better title for my blog post. Its pretty straightforward in the title that its Stephen King talking about his creative writing process, his failures and successes leading up to his success, and what he believes it takes to be a creative writer. I had gotten about halfway though the book before the semester started and then heard our teacher tell us we didn't need to read that book and we wouldn't be using it this semester. I didn't really mind that but I decided to finish the book and since it had caught my interest. The ending was about how he had a car hit him and what he went through after that, which truly was interesting to read, the be main parts of the book to me were him dealing with trying to get his name out in the world and what he did to start his creative process.

I did take the advice of having one spot that I know I wont be distracted from anything else in the world. Even if that means working on my computer as usual and just turning my Internet off. Also a key point he brings up, which I agree with, is that you have to read in order to write. I can't say I am a good writer, and wouldn't dare claim I am a great writer, but anything that has come out of my head is because of all the reading I have done. I don't copy someones work and try and mimic them word for word. Rather, after reading something that you feel was great its like exercising. In sports if you don't exercise you aren't going to get that far. I feel that when you read something great it really inspires you to above your own level. Sometimes this fails but sometimes you get something great out of it. King says he reads usually around 80 books a year. That number seemed absurd to me before this semester. After this semester though, I actually think I might end up around there. The problem though is that most of the books I read are about 600-1100 page long books so it takes longer then a 200-400 page book obviously. Also something I do that he said he does is I love to listen to music as I write. I sometimes use music to help dictate the mood in the story or help me reach that type of mind set. Other times I just use it as background noise to keep the rest of the world out of my head with its small distractions and seducing words of procrastination.

His practices in writing might not be for everyone, and on certain things I don't see myself agreeing on, but it does help to get the perspective of someone who is a successful author and continues to write even today.

http://www.stephenking.com/index.html
http://thewwaitingroom.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/reading-material-including-a-little-known-harry-potter-short-story/

Caviar

I cant say that the plot twists in the story were all that surprising. As soon as they started talking about a doctor helping them with their children issues the story pretty much unfolded. I didn't predict that he would flay that fish at the end then precede to gutting it, but besides that it was easy to see that he would cheat on Mary with Wendy and that the doctor would be involved with Wendy. Also the fact that he beat the doctor up and was arrested seemed predictable as well. I enjoyed it, not saying that I didn't, just that it was somewhat easy to predict. I guess I feel bad for Mary since she had a cheating husband and a friend, someone that gave her a child, who cheated with her husband. My main question is she going to blame this on the child or if she will be able to move past that and love the child none the less.

Date Night 2nd draft

Ross Reilly

Date Night

I idled there staring at the address, looking down at the note with the same address on it, and then looking back up again to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. My little trance was broken when a buzzer on the top of the door went off and I saw my date come out and wave for me to come inside. Robby was his name, he stood there smiling at me with his long wavy brown hair and icy blue eyes. I grabbed the ends of my brown hair and only saw split ends and stared at it with my common place brown nothing eyes. He was wearing his black leather jacket which was opened in the front and had a similar black t-shirt under it with a red phoenix on it and worn in jeans. I frowned a bit, knowing I had only a simple blue dress on with a thick sweater. Luckily he didn’t notice and held the door open for me; still smiling like this was all a joke, as I entered in with him.

When I got inside, my nostrils were invaded with the smell that comes from whatever cleaner they use at every hospital. They had Santeria by Sublime playing on their speakers, a song and a band which was one of my guilty pleasures that I could never let my parents know about. I was happy that they had this song playing, but as I continued to listen I realized they had the uncensored version playing. I felt my stomach turn again and started staring down at my shoes, making sure I was actually standing here and not having a nightmare.

“Hey they will be ready for us in about five minutes so grab a seat with me.” Robby said.

The place had these beautiful wooden oak floors that looked like it was only polished yesterday and gave the impression that you could eat off of them, and it would be more sanitary than if you ate off a plate. The walls were a dark green with hundreds of photo’s covering them; they were all framed in the same type of oak wood that covered the floor. They had pictures of art work everywhere in these frames. People that had come into the shop had photos taken and places the owner and his family had gone too were up on the wall. Robby put his arm around my waist, which made me make a small squeal. He laughed and walked me over to the benches. I didn’t see what was funny and felt like I could cry at any moment. We sat there and he just leaned back with his hands behind his head looking at all the artwork on the walls. He seemed really concentrated on them all, as his eyes darted from one to the other, staring so intensely, I thought he was going to make them pop off their canvas and come to life. He turned to me with those strong prodding eyes as if he was waiting for me to come to life. I turned away and started staring at my feet again, wondering when I would wake up from this dream and be home in my pink room with my warm stuffed animals isolated from things like this. The only reason I said yes to this date was because Robby was practically and idol in our school an he asked me in the middle of the lunch room with everyone watching. All I could do was nod my head to say yes while everyone watched on.

He placed his hand around my neck and gave it a small rub. I felt the heat from his hands against my skin and the cold metal from his rings rub against me all at the same time. I think I stopped breathing for a few seconds and could only squeeze the hems of my dress to try and calm myself down from all of this. ‘How did I, me, get here?’ is all that kept going through my mind.

“Hey don’t worry about it, everything will be fine, you’re doing great.” He said.

I should smack him and just walk out right now. What’s the worst that can happen really? Everyone at school hates me and shuns me for the rest of high school? I didn’t smack him though; I just looked up at him like I would imagine a fawn would look at a wolf. I wondered if I did smack him if my hand would hurt after from the prickliness of his facial hair. I turned away, again, when I noticed something that sounded like a sewing machine. I started to hear moans and small screams from some of the other customers that overpowered the voice of Dave Grohl, who was singing Best of You. I started to tear up as quietly as possible, feeling as if I was waiting on death row and I could hear and see the other condemned being executed right in front of me.

I thought my heart was already beating out of my chest but then Robby pulled my head against his chest. I felt like my heart was keeping beat with the buzzing of the machines at a thousand beats a second. I remember the aroma of Head and Shoulders that came from being so close to him and the smooth feeling of his leather jacket against my cheek. I wanted to say something but it felt as if I had tried to speak I would vomit my heart out and it would lie there on those beautiful wooden floors, still beating and not realizing it wasn’t inside of me. I just stayed there until I began to give into it and let my shoulders unstiffen, my breathe slowly returned to normal, and my heart went from being on the border lines of a heart attack to the slow beats of a drum you would hear at a poetry jam.

“Alright Robby, you two are up,” someone said from the back of the room.

Everything then went back to being erratic as the adrenaline started pumping through my veins again. We got over to the man who I assumed called us over and I don’t think to this day I have seen a more intimidating man. He sat there in a sleeveless shirt that said “Stop staring” which only made me stare more. He had tattoos all along his arms of naked women and skulls, down his wrists where tribal designs, wrapping around his neck was a thorny rose that has drips of blood at the end of each thorn, and each finger had a letter that spelled ‘hate’ on his left hand and on the right hand ‘love’. I’m sure he was covered head to toe in them but I didn’t feel like I should ask this man to show me all his tattoos and just ask him not to kill me.

“Alright Robby who’s first you or her?” He asked.

“She’ll go first and then me after” Robby said.

Time froze for me as a million things raced across my mind. Is there another ‘her’ coming because he can’t mean me. If I run now I think I can at least make it to the door and scream for help. Time started again as I felt Robby lead me over to the chair and help me into it. I simply walked over and sat down as if I was merely a puppet and he was the puppeteer. I felt like the real me was floating overhead watching this girl who had a striking resemblance to me, sitting in a black leather chair.

“Alright so this is what we are going to have done for her” Robby said, “and we’ll have them both going along both her wrists.” He handed a paper over to the man and all the man did was look at it and nod.

I can’t hide this if it’s on my wrists. I can’t stuff this under my bed or cover it up every day till I die. Everyone will see this and will always see this. I don’t even know what it is! I’ll have to cut my hands off or run away from home because of this.

Robby said, “So I know you are probably a bit shaken by all of this. That’s fine, but now you have to choice what you want to do. I am only trying to show you a door that’s available to you but at the end of the day only you can open it if you want to. I always see you walking through the halls as quiet and meek as a mouse, but think I know what is under all of that. So speak, speak and decide what you want to do.”

I sat there as he held my hand as I started to shake. Or was it that I started to shake after he held my hand? Everything that happened around me was a jumble for a little while as I started hearing something inside of me. I slipped into myself and all I could hear was the distant rattling of a metal cup against metal bars, as a prisoner I locked away long ago was trying to get my attention. She was as much me as I was her but she had eyes that looked like a cats and had fiery red hair that could never be tamed. She sat there floating in her cell above a lake that could only be slightly seen in the breaking light of dusk. As she stared into me, I realized that we had changed places. Then I was looking out at myself, or what I what was formally myself. I felt my muscles tense as I looked at the dull brown hair. I felt my eyes narrow and my face scowl as I looked at the dress my mother bought me and the sweater my grandmother knitted. I felt my teeth cringe as I looked at those dead eyes and conventional face that lacked life, which lacked a soul, which lacked me!

Next thing I knew, the cage was falling apart. Rust and cracks raced across the metal and forced it to snap apart as if it was made of paper mache. My ears were filled with the sound of tons of metal colliding and battling with each other as they fell towards the lake. Thundering splashes and the screaming of metal filled everything in me as waves broke out from the calamity and disrupted the calm of the never changing lake and created waves that no ocean storm could dream of mimicking. The sun had risen to reveal all the land and everything I knew till then, no, rather everything that I was forced to know and be, had been consumed by the waves of my cataclysmic rebirth.

“Robby, I don’t think she is going to go through with it” was the first remark I remember snapping back into.

I yelled, “Don’t say what I will and won’t do! I decide that and no one else! I won’t have someone telling me how to live, what to wear, what I should value, who to avoid, or who I am! I am me finally and I won’t go back to what I was!”

I had drawn everyones’ attention at that point, and was gasping for air, for it felt like I had been holding my breath for years, as I was silently being smothered to death. I looked up to Robby and all I could do was place my hand against his face and smile.

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Date Night

So I wrote this for one of my classes. This class actually since I dont think anyone other then my classmates and teacher are looking at this blog yet. I like it since I just wrote it but im sure there are plenty of grammar mistakes or simple misspellings atm but I still want to post it. Ill repost the final copy at a later time.

Ross Reilly

Date Night

I idled there staring at the address, looking down at the note with the same address on it, and then looking back up again to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. My little trance was broken when a little buzzer on the top of the door went off and I saw my date come out and wave me to come inside. Robby was his name, he stood there smiling at me with his long wavy brown hair and icy blue eyes. I grabbed the ends of my brown hair and only saw split ends and stared at it with my common place brown nothing eyes. He was wearing his black leather jacket which was opened in the front and had a similar black t-shirt under it with a red phoenix on it and worn in jeans. I frowned a bit, knowing I had only a simple blue dress on with a thick sweater. Luckily he didn’t notice and held the door open for me, still smiling like this was all a joke, as I entered in with him.

When I got inside my nostrils were invaded with the smell that comes from whatever cleaner they use at every hospital. They had Santeria by Sublime playing on their speakers, a song and a band which was one of my guilty pleasures that I could never let my parents know about. I was happy that they had this song playing but as I continued to listen I realized they had the uncensored version playing. I felt my stomach turn again and started staring down at my shoes making sure I was actually standing here and not having a nightmare.

“Hey they will be ready for us in about five minutes so grab a seat with me.” Robby said.

The place had these beautiful wooden oak floors that looked like they were only polished yesterday and gave the impression that you could eat off of them and it would be more sanitary then if you ate off a plate. The walls were a dark green with hundreds of photo’s covering them. All framed in the same type of oak wood that covered the floor. They had pictures of art work everywhere in these frames, people that had come into the shop, and places the owner and his family had gone too. Robby put his arm around my waist which made me make a small squeal. He laughed and walked me over to the benches. I didn’t see what was funny and felt like I could cry at any moment. We sat there and he just leaned back with his hands behind his head looking at all the artwork on the walls. He seemed really concentrated on them all as his eyes darted from one to the other, staring so intensely I thought he was going to make them pop off their canvas and come to life. He turned to me with those eyes that made me feel as if souls were something hidden in the depths of our eyes and would devour you whole it you stared to long at someone’s. I turned away and starting staring at my feet again, wondering when I would wake up from this dream and be home in my pink room with my warm stuffed animals protected from these types of situations.

He placed his hand around my neck and gave it a small rub. I felt the heat from his hands against my skin and the cold metal from his rings rub against me all at the same time. I think I stopped breathing for a few seconds and could only squeeze the hems of my dress to try and calm myself down from all of this. ‘How did I, me, get here!’ is all that kept going through my mind.

“Hey don’t worry about it everything will be fine, you’re doing great.” He said.

‘I should smack him and just walk out right now’ I thought. ‘What’s the worst that can happen, everyone at school hates me and shuns me for the rest of high school?’ I didn’t smack him though; I just looked up at him like I would imagine a fawn would look at a wolf. I wondered if I did smack him if my hand would hurt after from the prickliness of his facial hair. I turned away, again, when I noticed something that sounded like a sewing machine. I started to hear moans and small screams from some of the other customers that overpowered the voice of Dave Grohl who was singing Best of You. I started to silently sob feeling as if I was waiting on death row and I could hear and see the other condemned being executed right in front of me.

I thought my heart was already beating out of my chest but then Robby pulled my head against his chest. I felt like my heart was keeping beat with the buzzing of the machines at a thousand beats a second. I remember the aroma of Head and Shoulders that came from being so close to him and the smooth feeling of his leather jacket against my cheek. I wanted to say something but it felt as if I had tried to speak I would vomit my heart out and it would lie there on those beautiful wooden floors still beating and not realizing it wasn’t inside of me still. I just stayed there until I began to give into it and let my shoulders unstiffen, my breathe slowly return to normal, and my heart go from being on the border lines of a heart attack too the slow beats of a drum you would hear at a poetry jam.

“Alright Robby, you two are up.” Someone said from the back of the room.

Everything in went back to being erratic as the adrenaline started pumping through my veins again. We got over to the man who I assume called us over and I don’t think to this day I have seen a more intimidating man. He sat there in a sleeveless shirt that said “Stop staring” which only made me stare more. He had tattoo’s all along his arms of naked women and skulls, down his wrists where tribal designs, wrapping around his neck was a thorny rose that has drips of blood at the end of each thorn, and each finger had a letter that spelled ‘hate’ on his left hand and on the right hand ‘love’. I’m sure he was covered head to toe in them but I didn’t feel like I should ask this man to show me all his tattoos and just ask him not to kill me.

“Alright Robby who’s first you or her?” He asked.

“She’ll go first and then me after” Robby said.

Time froze for me as a million things raced across my mind. ‘He said ‘her’, I know he said her. Is there another ‘her’ coming because he can’t mean me’ were a few of the thoughts that initially came across my mind. After that it simply consisted of things along the line of ‘if I run now I think I can at least make it to the door and scream for help’. Time started again as I felt Robby lead me over to the chair and help me into it. I simply walked over and sat down as if I was merely a puppet and he was the puppeteer. I felt like the real me was floating over head watching this girl who looked a lot like me lying in a black leather chair.

“Alright so this is what we are going to have done for her” Robby said, “and well have them both going along both her wrists.” He handed a paper over to the man and all the man did was look at it and nod.

I thought, ‘I can’t hide this if it’s on my wrists. I can’t stuff it under my bed or cover it up everyday till I die. Everyone will see this and will always see this. I don’t even know what it is! I’ll have to cut my hands off or run away from home because of this’.

Robby said, “So I know you are probably a bit shaken by all of this. That’s fine, but now you have to choice what you want to do. I am only trying to show you a door that’s available to you but at the end of the day only you can open it if you want to. I always see you walking through the halls as quiet and meek as a moose but I know what is under all of that. So speak, speak and decide what you want to do.”

I sat there as he held my hand as I started to shake. Or was it that I started to shake after he held my hand? Everything that happened around me was a jumble for a little while as I started hearing something inside of me. I slipped into myself and all I could hear was the distant rattling of a metal cup against metal bars, as a prisoner I locked away long ago was trying to get my attention. She was as much me as I was her but she had eyes that looked like a raptors and had fiery red hair that could never be tamed. She stared into me and I realized that we had changed places, that I was the one behind those bars floating above a lake that’s depths could never be measured and that could only be slightly seen in the breaking light of dusk. Then I was looking out at myself, or what I what was formally myself. I felt my muscles tense as I looked at the dull brown hair. I felt my eyes narrow and my face scowl as I looked at the dress my mother bought me and the sweater my grandmother knitted. I felt teeth cringe as I looked at those dead eyes and conventional face that lacked life, which lacked a soul, which lacked me!

Next thing I knew the cage was falling apart. Rust and cracks raced across the metal and forced it to snap apart as if it was made of paper mache. My ears were filled with the sound of tons of metal colliding with each other as they fell towards the lake. Thundering splashes and the screaming of metal filled everything in me as waves broke out from the calamity and disrupted the calm of never changing lake and created waves that no ocean storm could dream of mimicking. The sun had risen to reveal all the land and everything I knew till then, no, rather everything that I was forced to know and be, had been consumed by the waves of my cataclysmic rebirth.

“Robby I don’t think she is going to go through with it” was the first I remember snapping back into.

I yelled, “Don’t say what I will and won’t do! I decide that and no one else! I won’t have someone telling me how to live, what to wear, what I should value, who to avoid, or who I am! I am me finally and I won’t go back to what I was!”

I had drawn everyones attention at that point and was gasping for air, for it felt like I had been holding my breath for years and silently being smothered to death. I looked up to Robby and all I could do was place my hand against his face and smile.

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