King's "On Writing" to Help My Writing

If Stephen King had a central theme throughout his memoir, it would have to be "keep it simple and basic." Much of his advice that I plan to incorporate into my memoir comes at the beginning of the second half of his own memoir. He references our writing to a toolbox and says the basic tools go on top: vocabulary and grammar. These are the foundations to our writing. He tells us to focus on using the vocabulary that we have and to avoid replacing our own vocabulary with bigger words. Along with using our own vocabulary, King stresses for the reader to get to the point and skip the "bullshit." Although he fails to follow his own advice, I plan to get straight to the point with my reader and avoid any unnecessary words, sentences, or paragraphs.

Possible Memoir Ideas

Like everyone else, I would like to think I have had a pretty typical life free of any fantastic or life changing events. However, I have brainstormed a few ideas and this is what I was able to come up with:

Memoir I - The summer going into my junior year of high school, I found out that my dad decided to take a job in Ohio. My parents pretty much left me with the option of going down with them or staying up in Michigan to finish school with all of my friends. I ultimately made the decision to stay and finish school. As a result, I had a much different experience living with my grandma while my parents were down in Ohio compared to how it would've been had I chosen to go down with them or had my dad never even taken the job.

Memoir II - The summer of 2007 I took up my first real job working in a container board packaging factory. It was my first real job. It was also the same factory that my parents have each worked at for 25+ years each. It was interesting to work there, experiencing first hand what they had done for so many years and learning to have a greater appreciation for it.

At first I was leaning more towards Memoir I but after writing a bit on Memoir II, I think I could have more to say on II. I guess at this point though, I am in the middle of the two. What do you guys think?

Saying More by Using Less

   "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White has a lot of good pointers that every writer can take in order to improve his/her writing. The two rules that the article mentioned, Be clear, and Omit needless words, are great. By following these rules, the reader can see straight through to the writer's point. There will be no chance to misconstrue the writer's words and no need to go back and re-read a sentence or even a whole paragraph.
 
   The reason we write is to get our ideas across to the reader, while at the same time not leaving them with ambiguity, unless of curse it's on purpose. Therefore, the way we write matters. In order for language to be effective, it has to be universal and by following a guide like "Elements of Style", we preserve the basic rules. While there is slang in every language and a growing number of text messages being sent daily, the basic principles of the language are still there. In fact, texting follows the two rules, Be clear and Omit needles words pretty well.

   For whatever the reason: short on time, short on space, or just plain lazy; when we text someone, we get straight to the point. It is almost like cavemen talk; meet me at library? or, where you at?. It may not be grammatically correct, but it gets the writer's idea across to the next person and we all understand. Now, I am not saying that we should implement this type of language into our everyday conversation or even into our own writing, but I think that in a way we follow "Elements of Style" everyday without even thinking about it. It shouldn't be to hard then to transfer these rules into our own writing.

Following Anne Dillard's Advice

   Anne Dillard's article, "Write Till' You Drop", is an interesting piece that will hopefully get me to write more freely as the class progresses. However, at the same time, just sitting here trying to write this blog, I think too much of what I'm going to write next instead of just simply following my thoughts. Throughout most of writing career, from when I was first learned to form sentences, all the way into college and today, the majority of the writing that I have done has been based on strict guidelines and is mostly a response or an essay that reflects another piece of literature we were assigned.
   Most recently, the thoughts of taking a creative writing course here at Oakland University have sparked my interest. With the majority of my writing being based on the work of another writer, I wonder how I would fair taking a course that allows me to start from scratch using my own thoughts. Actually, it wouldn't even have to be a class for me to do this. I could start now, in my room with a pad of paper. Following Anne Dillard's advice, who know the possibilities? She makes a lot of good points that I will be sure to use this for this class and the rest of my writing career....