Stephen King's Take on the Short Story

Thanks to Sandra Seamans' excellent blog My Little Corner, which is a tremendous resource to keep up to date on what is happening in the publishing world, especially short fiction, I found Stephen King's thoughts on the state of the short story. It was published in The Atlantic magazine HERE. It is well worthe a read.

What really caught my attention was this comment:

"And there are little magazines that publish in that sense -- but a lot of the people who read those magazines are only reading them to see what they publish so that they can publish their own stories".

I know a lot of the writers I follow and read are all published in these types of small press or e-zine sites and blogs. There is no pay usually and if you did get a few bucks for a short, it would be a great win. So, is there any truth to SK's comment or has he become so successful and out of touch with "the little guy" that he's got his head up his ass? Remember, he used to submit soft-core porn stories to skin mags when he first started out, and I'm thinking he might have only bought them to see his own stories in print.

A few Writing Tips I'd Like To Pass On

I am going to try, once a week, to pass on some of the information I have learned since I got into this writing gig. So today here are some useful resources that were recommended to me, and are pretty common to all writers.

1) Read Stephen King's "On writing"- There are lot's of so-called experts willing to provide advice, but I and thousands or writer's seem to agree that this is a must read.

2) Join a writer's discussion forum- There are many, but Absolute Write & Writer's Digest seem to be the sites that most writer's use. You can follow along "anonymously" and learn, or you can join and participate when ready.

3) Read, Read, Read, especially the genre you want to write in.

4) Most authors have blogs. If you have a favorite author, check out and follow their blog.

5) Take a peek at Elmore Leonards "10 Rules of Writing" It is online and again, it is hard to find a writer who has not read and endorsed these.

That's it for today. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check back next week as I'll be having a little contest where you can win a free print version of "Mindjacker".