"This is one of the places I keep returning to..."
For the first section of reading in Stephen King’s “On Writing” (sections 1-18), my favorite anecdote has been when he described his home in Stratford, Connecticut and then discussed that this place has been in several of his books, including “It”. This resonated with me because I value the phrase: “Write what you know.” In my own personal writing, I come back to this idea constantly and I appreciated how true that is with King as well. This quote stood out because King’s stories are personalized in a way that when he shares his home with the audience, they don’t realize it.
One thing I have learned from King so far is that rejection is real and common, and that is okay. Something that I have learned and can apply to Feature Writing is to write fresh. During his childhood, he would write stories for movies he watched. In the journalism world, you can write an article about something that has already been written about (for example everyone is reporting about how deadly Covid-19 is or what the government is or is not doing). Instead, I could focus on what individuals are doing to stay productive, what religious organizations are doing to get around social distancing, or new grocery shopping habits.
“Our new third-floor apartment on West Broad Street. A block down the hill, not far from
Teddy’s Market and across from Burrets Building Material was a huge tangled wilderness area with a junkyard on the far side and a train track running through the middle. This is one of the places I keep returning to in my imagination; it turns up in my books and stories again and again, under a variety of names. The kids in It called it the Barrens; we called it the jungle.” (Section 9, para. 2)
Teddy’s Market and across from Burrets Building Material was a huge tangled wilderness area with a junkyard on the far side and a train track running through the middle. This is one of the places I keep returning to in my imagination; it turns up in my books and stories again and again, under a variety of names. The kids in It called it the Barrens; we called it the jungle.” (Section 9, para. 2)
One thing I have learned from King so far is that rejection is real and common, and that is okay. Something that I have learned and can apply to Feature Writing is to write fresh. During his childhood, he would write stories for movies he watched. In the journalism world, you can write an article about something that has already been written about (for example everyone is reporting about how deadly Covid-19 is or what the government is or is not doing). Instead, I could focus on what individuals are doing to stay productive, what religious organizations are doing to get around social distancing, or new grocery shopping habits.
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