终于一鼓作气把这本书读完，距离上一次发表书评已经有三个月。这习惯不好，得改。
还记得当时买这本书是因为在 Twitter 上推荐，具体内容记不清了，但看到 Stephen King 的名字之后没想太多就直接买下。直到三个月前，当我读完 Peter Hessler 的中国三部曲之后，我才开始读这一本。
我喜欢的作品大多数是写实类，而 Stephen King 却是一位虚幻类作家。感谢电影工业，我也有机会了解过他的作品。1999 年的时候看过电影 The Shawshank Redemption，后来也买到原著 Different Seasons 拜读（但只读了四个故事中的一个）。
本来以为是一本写作技巧和心得，但结果发现有三分之一的内容是传记。这样很好，我可以对作者了解多一些。而且，我认为写作技巧和心得这么抽象的事情，有时候也需要一些案例教学法来帮忙。
读完传记部分，我才发现 Stephen King 也是个受过苦的人。毕业之后当过老师，在小镇过着清苦的生活。房子，妻子和孩子都需要照顾到，生活的压力不小。但这家伙还有一些毛病，不仅吸烟、嗜酒，而且还喜欢嗑点药……好在这一切都不是大问题，没犯下严重错误之前改正都来得及。如果成了成功人士，这些问题都是可以忽视的。不是吗？
接下来就是我期待已久的写作技巧和心得部分，这部分说得很细，从写作语言到语法，从创作环境到经纪人，Stephen King 把能讲的都讲了。我对其中两个观点比较感兴趣，摘抄如下。
首先是“化石和考古”。Stephen 认为写作就是一个发掘地下文物的过程，必须非常非常地小心。不能大刀阔斧地硬来，那样会破坏故事的细节，使得一切都不真实。
然后是“阅读与写作的关系”。Stephen 直截了当地说：如果没时间阅读，那就别写作了。他认为阅读是写作的基础，这个观点跟我国古代的说法“熟读唐诗三百首，不会作诗也会吟”类似。
当我读到如何寻找一个优秀代理人的时候，我几乎认为这本书已经读完了。结果我发现了这本书的第三部分：一段濒死体验。Stephen King 在 1999 年的夏天经历过一场严重车祸，这部分描述了他在这段时间的故事和体验，同时也分享了他如何恢复写作。
我觉得但凡经历过这种事情的人都会有动力写点什么，这一部分很好地解释了为什么会有这么一本书。
总的来说，这本书是一个惊喜。不管你是否 Stephen King 的粉丝，我认为任何一个愿意写作的人都应该找来读一读，哪怕你写的只是 Blog 而已呢。
这本书我给了四星评价，如果你也想找来一读，在这里可以买到。
—–以下是我发布在亚马逊上的书评—–
It’s been three months since I finished last book on Kindle. It doesn’t feel good not to read books. So I re-started to read Stephen King’s memoir On Writing.
I bought this book because of some recommendations from friends on twitter. At first I thought this is a biography rather than a writing textbook. When I finished, I finally figured out this is a hybrid of both.
Stephen King is a fiction writer. But I’m not a fiction book lover. If you by chance checked my reading history, you will find almost all books I read are non-fictions. But that doesn’t matter. Thanks to the movie industry, I did read some of his novellas. And I did have one favorite Stephen King story Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.
In the first part of this book, Stephen King shared with us the memoir. You will definitely know more about him. One point I have to mention here is Stephen had problems too. He was an alcoholic and drug addict. You can find out how he dealt with them.
The second part will be helpful if you want to write. In this part we can find out many practical techniques on writing. There are no big rules but very handy stuffs.
What I think the most interesting metaphor is theory of fossil of relics. In Stephen’s theory, writing stories is like to dig fossils in the ground. You got to be extremely careful when you find one.
And again I’m told to read more. No reading, no writing. This is what I’ve learnt from the book. (And the reason why I invested dollars to a Kindle reader!) I have difficulties in reading English, because it’s my second language. But I’m lucky enough to read original books though my reading speed is unbelievably slow.
The last part is Stephen’s near-death experience in 1999. I never knew that! (Since I’m not a real Stephen fan.) And this part answered the big question why this book is there.
The book is about 300 pages. The language is easy to understand even for a foreigner. A lot of advice are there to be noted down. I really enjoy reading it. This is a book for every potential writers. I’m looking for a good time to re-read this book.