By Meg Miller | Friday, October 10, 2014 - Off the Shelf
A lot has been written about the creative processes of famous people. For the same reasons that How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie was an instant bestseller, people interested in creative pursuits have made books like The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp and Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke their bibles. We like to poke around in people’s studios, dig through their pasts for clues of their genius, and hear about the day when it all clicked. We’re secretly hoping some of that creative brilliance will rub off on us.

 Basically, it’s self-help for people who snub their noses at self-help. And nobody snubs self-help better than literary types, which is why I believe there are so many books written by writers about writing. Most of these books have black and white covers with unceremonious (and decidedly un-self-help-y) titles like titles like Writing and The Writing Life and A Writer’s Diary.
I’ve read and enjoyed all of those books, by the way, but the one I’ve found the most helpful is Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. King’s book is both an instructive guide to honing one’s writing skills and the fascinating life story of a man who drew inspiration for Carrie while working as a high school janitor and then went on to become one of the bestselling authors of all time.