Working online I have begun to learn that it is all about content- content is king. Need content to get people to a site, content for search engines to index, and content so people have something to buzz about. Though generally one wants to offer quality it often devolves into a quantity game. Looking at the writing on the Internet I often wonder if there any writers are left in the world.

One of the few books I ever read on writing outside of school is Stephen King’s book On Writing. Of Stephen King’s books, On Writing is the only book I have read. Have read some shorts stories though. On Writing is King’s non-fiction work that is part auto-biographical but also a primer on writing. The summation is that he feels that one must know the rules of writing before breaking them, as he does. This makes sense to me. It is like Picasso. I never liked Picasso nor appreciated his work, thought modernism was some con game. Actually, still do but as it relates to Picasso have more appreciation for his work when I learned he was classically trained. But not only trained but he also started painting with classic form. Learned this when an exhibit of his early work was on travel. Then after mastering classical did he begin to explore modernism (and my interest wanes).

King is saying the same thing about writers, know how to write before freely breaking the rules. Makes me wish I paid more attention when I was diagramming sentences in junior high. We finish grammar too soon and should be continued through college. We finish grammar as high school freshmen and all English courses after that focus on reading (but not how to read). Recall stumbling through Shakespeare and Beowulf? There is some essay and paper writing but that usually focuses on methodology. In my day it was a whole lot of citation and index cards. Not sure what they teach these days in the day of computers and Internet. But I guarantee it is not grammar.

The Internet guru’s swear that grammar is not important. Some even revel in their misspellings (with spell check on their computers no less) and grammatical incorrectness. I am no grammatician, but I can appreciate good form. I can also strive to be better, write better. In Mortimer Adler’s book How To Read A Book, he advocates for teaching reading into college. Why do we stop teaching how to read in middle high school? That reading in high school is just about content and not the mechanics of reading. Feel the same about grammar, shouldn’t that too be a life-long process.

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Stephen King’s Book “On Writing” On Ebay

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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (2...
US $9.95
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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (2000, Hardcover)
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King, Stephen ON WRITING Signed US HCDJ 1st/1st NF
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On Writing by Stephen King (2000, Unabridged, Audio Cassette)
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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft NEW by Stephen King
US $16.10
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Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Plot Construction
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1st/1st Edition ON WRITING Stephen King MODERN Classic
US $55.00
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