drjon found this useful piece on writing, which I'll post on my course websites for students to peruse. There's a plethora of guides and books on writing, poetry and such that I use for my classes, but the one I think is perhaps the most valuable is not actually on the textbook list. I'm not sure why; I've just never bothered to change it. Perhaps I should.

Stephen King's On Writing remains to me a seminal text on writing well. After a long while wondering where my original hardback copy went, I accepted defeat and purchased another softcover copy earlier this year. Disappointing really: I know I loaned it to someone. It's the who and the when that I'm fuzzy about. After losing many a book or DVD to students, friends and others, I decided to keep a short list of where my stuff was. It's worked for the most part.

King's advice in On Writing is succinct and gleaned from a lifetime as a working successful writer; he pares back a story to its bones, revealing the tenets of managing important features like structure and language. His tone is friendly and patient, but with that slight tinge of world weariness and cynicism. He writes in a very accessible voice, much like you'd imagine the man to be. I revisited his book a little while back; I have been trying to prepare for this writing workshop I'm going to and read over a few key sections of that and other books I've always found useful. Kind of re-absorbing myself back into a writerly way of thinking I guess.

It's amazing how far away from that mindset you can get when you've just been reading other people's words for what seems like eons. And I'm not talking about writing for pleasure either - my reading of late hasn't been much more than a newspaper, a magazine, a hell of a lot of blogs or the occasional non-fiction piece.

A DVD menu does not count as reading to me...especially considering my main advice to students about how to learn to write involves reading a lot. Bit hypocritical really. In my defense Your Honour I can only point to the piles of marking that are the largest part of my job. At the end of the day I don't feel much like reading!

But I do plan to get some solid reading and writing done very soon. Only a few more days now and I'll be looking at this: