Stephen King's "On Writing" is a memoir of the author's experiences as a writer and serves as a guide for those who choose to embark on the profession of writing. Stephen King writes about his childhood and young adulthood, telling stories that made him the writer he became. Stephen King then discusses the mechanics of writing, offering advice and insight into a successful career that worked so well for him but remains distant for thousands of others. “On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft” is not written in the traditional textbook. format. The structure of this book functions as a teaching tool as it offers a personal look at how writing affected the life of a successful novelist. Each section of the book contains something important about being a writer. The book also includes a lot of information about the personal impact that writing had on Stephen King's life. In First Forward, Stephen King turned to his colleague Amy Tan for a justifiable reason to work on this nonfiction work. Amy replied: "No one ever asks about language." King says: “What follows is an attempt to explain, briefly and simply, how I came to the profession, and what I now know about it, and how it is done. It’s about daily work; it's about the language. » (xiv). As a successful novelist, King had experiences that a writer would not only like to learn from, but perhaps live one day. Finding out how success came to someone the aspiring writer could look up to makes the dream more real, almost achievable. This success as a writer makes Stephen King an expert on the subject, making his views authoritative. The basis of nonfiction writing is research. In a social educational system...... middle of paper ......s on traditionalism which focuses on mastery, appreciation and understanding. King states, “no one can be as intellectually lazy as a truly intelligent person” (138). By and large, we are “creatures of habit,” thus resisting changes in the traditional sphere of academics. King uses his vision of popular culture to engage future readers and inspire the next generation of writers. “Part of this book – perhaps too much – is about how I learned to do it. A lot of it is about how to do things better. The rest – and perhaps the best – is permission: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. (King 269-270). “On Writing” is a poignant, informative and inspiring book, one that will certainly help hundreds of struggling writers and motivate others who might pick up the book not out of inspiration, but out of simple curiosity..