Coming into Feature Writing, I had minimal experience and knowledge about what it takes to be a decent writer. With that being said, I think reading "On Writing" has given me the knowledge and advise needed to better my writing skills and be successful in journalism. I think that it is important to know that writing is not easy, and even the professionals, like King, struggle from time to time.
When reading King's "toolbox" section, the two tools that stand out the most to me are:
(1) Active versus passive verbs. I have a terrible habit of using passive verbs, and doing so has cost me many points on essay and writing assignment scores.
(2) Paragraph and sentence length. These two go hand in hand because you need variation in length to make a piece of writing flow nicely. This advise is especially important to me because I would write long, blocky paragraphs that were all the same length. I would do the same with my sentences as well, making my writing very boring and mundane.
Keeping both of these pieces of advise in my mind when writing for this class should help me be successful and write like I belong in a journalism class.
My favorite line from "On Writing" has to be: "Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around." I think this is important to remember when pursuing anything in life, writing included, it can become extremely time- and life-consuming. It can be easy to get lost in the pursuit of happiness and lose out on life's important treasures.
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