If you took 30 minutes and stumbled the web or perused Amazon.com for books on writing you’d be overwhelmed, if not completely whelmed.  The volume and variety is staggering and instead of feeling like a kid in a candy store, you may very well throw your hands in the air and just plain give up.  The mountain of material is too much.

Now if you have a specific topic in mind such as market books, it’s easy enough to narrow the search – although why anyone would choose to purchase something other than Writer’s Market from the minds of Writer’s Digest Books is beyond my ability to comprehend.  If you’re looking for generic “How To” books, you will reach sensory overload.

There are two specific books that have had a profound effect on my attitude towards writing and how I accomplish writing tasks each day.  The first is On Writing by Stephen King.  Ok, Ok I know that there is not a lot of middle ground as far as opinions on Mr. King go.  Ya love him or ya hate him.  I’m willing to accept that.  I’ll admit I am a big Stephen King fan.  I love his style and his stories have kept me entertained for years.  For all you King-haters, do me (and yourself) a huge favor.  Get a copy of this book (amazon.com)and spend an afternoon taking it all in.  It is an easy read and not pretentious or stuffy in the least.

King gives great advise for aspiring writers in a real and down-to-earth style that is very conversational.  Two hunks of wisdom struck me the most.  First, you need a space with a door you can close.  The closed door tells everyone in the houshold, “Caution!  Writer at Work! Do Not Disturb!”.  This is crucial because as we all know, a writer writes and there should be sacred time every day for a writer to work on their craft.  The second rule if you will, is to write like lightning.  When you sit down to write, don’t stop to reference a thesaraus or dictionary or web site.  There is plenty of time for all of those things during the re-write process (and you do have a re-write process, right?  Good).  When the words are flowing fast and furious, let them flow, let the story meander in the direction it’s going to go, without interference from Webster’s or Google.  Let it happen! Stopping to confirm a tidbit of information interrupts the process and takes you out of the zone.

I love the advice King puts forth in this book.  It really spoke to me and kick-started an otherwise stalled writing career.

The other book that I recently acquired and devoured is Beginning Writer’s Answer Book. If you are just getting started, or maybe you’ve been at the craft for a while with limited success, this is the book for you.  There are literally hundreds of questions answered for you in a wide variety of categories and subjects.  The author tackles everything from basic writing tips to strategies helpful in getting your work published.  This book is available from the Writer’s Digest Book Club www.writersdigestbookclub.com and is worth every penny.

I’ve read dozens of helpful articles on the web and I subscribe to some great writer’s blog sites and my writer’s resource library expands nearly every day.  Each article, blog and book moves me a little closer to the writer I’d like to be.  Pay attention to what’s out there and you’ll be well on your way as well.