A friend of mine gave me this book for Christmas. I had made a mental note to get it for myself after the holidays and was very ecstatic to have gotten it as a gift. So of course, I began to read it immediately.
The book is part memoir and part writing book. In the first part of the book, the memoir, Stephen King talks about his childhood, his relationship with his brother and his hardworking single mom. He describes his very first attempts at writing when he was very young and how supportive his mother had been.
When he received his first rejection letter he pounded a nail on his bedroom wall and impaled the letter there. He continued writing and submitting his stories and by the time he was fourteen the nail would no longer support the weight of the rejection letters impaled on it.
He continues to tell his story in that conversational manner of his - like when he was six; he suffered from excruciatingly painful ear infections which caused him to miss a lot of school. And how during his school years he continued to write as well as loyally follow in his brother’s exploits. Followed by his college years; how he met his wife Tabitha, the struggles they endured during their first years of marriage and raising kids while he worked on his writing. And before I knew it, I had finished reading the memoir part of the book.
I eagerly moved on the next section – writing.