TRR's Blog Hop--Day 7--Stephen King

I know what you're saying--Stephen King doesn't write romance! But this blog hop is to feature writers who inspire us, and Stephen King's Book, On Writing, did it for me. (And, he has written one romance,  to be technical, but it was still a creepy King-esque kind of book.)

I stopped devouring Stephen King books with The Shining. I loved The Stand, but The Shining scared the beejeesus out of me. It didn't help that I had a setting that added to the book--I was living alone, in a small house set in front of my neighbor's, and he was a prowler who was frequently at my windows. And it was winter, cold and dreary. I had to only read a chapter at a time, otherwise I'd scare myself silly, and wouldn't be able to sleep. I've read a few of his other books over the years, and may make a stab at the sequel to The Shining, which is about to drop.

But, even though I'm no longer an avid reader of his, Mr. King does dispense some wonderful advice on the craft of writing in his book. It should be mandatory reading for any author, fiction or non-fiction.

Shortly after I read his book on writing, I woke up one night, with a scene playing on a continuous reel in my head. When that happens, I know I have to come downstairs, fire up the computer, and get the scene down before I can go back to sleep. So, here I was, at 4 am, in a quiet, dark house, with night still at the windows, and I'm deep into my scene. Suddenly, I hear Stephen's voice in my ear, whispering to me, "That's a passive sentence, Becky. You can do better."

Scared the beejeesus out of me again! You bet I whipped that sentence into shape and ran back upstairs.

Remember, if you sign up to receive my newsletter (on the right side of the page), I'm giving away to one lucky reader an e-copy of my latest book, The Tempestuous Debutante.