Stephen King recalls how writing helped him get through a sickly childhood year spent mostly bedridden. He read voraciously, from comic books to novels, and was inspired by his mother to start writing his own stories after she praised one he had copied from a comic. His first original story featured magical animals helping children and was well-received by his mother, who encouraged further writing. King earned his first money from writing by selling four additional stories about the characters to his mother's sisters.

1. OnWriting 41
On Writing
Stephen King
StephenKing's writing memoir, On Writing, combines personal narrative with advice to
writers.nthe following excerpt, King tells how he made a sickly childhood year bearable by
I
reading and eventually writing.
pointed, and that drained away much of my plea-
That year my brother was pulled out of school en-
fourth grade and I David jumped ahead to the sure. At last she handed back my tablet. "Write
tirely.I had missed too much of the first grade, one of your own, Stevie," she said. "Those Combat
mymother and the school agreed; I could start it Casey funnybooks are just junk-he's always
freshin the fall of the year, if my health was good. knocking someone's teeth out. I bet you could do
Most of that year I spent either in bed or better. Write one of your own."
housebound. I read my way through approxi- I remember an immense feeling of possibility at 5
mately tons of comic books, progressed to Tom
six the idea, as if! had been ushered into a vast build-
Swiftand Dave Dawson (a heroic World War II ing filled with closed doors and had been given
pilot whose various planes were always "prop- leave to open any I liked. There were more doors
clawingfor altitude"), then moved on to Jack than one person could ever open in a lifetime, I
London's bloodcurdling animal tales. At some thought (and still think).
pointI began to write my own stories. Imitation I eventually wrote a story about four magic an-
preceded creation; I would copy Combat Casey imals who rode around in an old car, helping out
comicsword for word in my Blue Horse tablet, little kids. Their leader was a large white bunny
sometimes adding my own descriptions where named Mr. Rabbit Trick. He got to drive the car.
theyseemed appropriate. "They were camped in The story was four pages long, laboriously printed
a big dratty farmhouse room," I might write; it in pencil. No one in it, so far as I can remember,
wasanother year or two before I discovered that jumped from the roof of the Graymore Hotel.
drat and d1'aft were different words. During that When I finished, I gave it to my mother, who sat
same period I remember believing that details down in tlle living room, put her pocketbook on
weredentals and that a bitch was an extremely tall the floor beside her, and read it all at once. I could
woman. son of a bitch was apt to be a basketball
A tell she liked it-she laughed in all the right
player. hen you're six, most of your Bingo balls
W places-but I couldn't tell if that was because she I!
arestill floating around in the draw-tank. liked me and wanted me to feel good or because it I
Eventually I showed one of these copycat hy- really was good. I
bridsto my mother, and she was charmed-I re- "You didn't copy this one?" she asked when she
memberher slightly amazed smile, as if she was had finished. I said no, I hadn't. She said it was
unableto believe a kid of hers could be so smart- good enough to be in a book. Nothing anyone has
practically damned prodigy, for God's sake. I had
a said to me since has made me feel any happier. I
neverseen that look on her face before-not on wrote four more stories about Mr. Rabbit Trick
myaccount, anyway-and I absolutely loved it. and his friends. She gave me a quarter apiece for
Sheasked me if I had made the story up myself, them and sent them around to her four sisters, who
andI was forced to admit that I had copied most pitied her a little, I think. They were all still mar-
of it out of a funnybook. She seemed disap- ried, after all; their men had stuck. It was true that

2. 42 1 THE WRITER'S PROCESS
Uncle Fred didn't have much sense of humor and Ruth, on the other hand, had been left holding the
was stubborn about keeping the top of his convert- baby when Don ran out. She wanted them to see
ible up, it was also true that Uncle Oren drank that he was a talented baby, at least.
quite a bit and had dark theories about how the Four stories. A quarter apiece. That was the first
Jews were running the world, but they were there. buck I made in this business.