Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451:The Sieve and the Sand

72: Montag betrays his claims of love for Mildred as he says, "She (Clarisse) was the first person in a good many years I've really liked." Again, the dialogue is far too British, but it's still a good inclusion by Bradbury.
73: I wish Bradbury wouldn't put the quotes around family when the word is spoken by Mildred. I think that it takes away from the overall effect of portraying Mildred's mindset.
74: Mildred is an unbelievable character. She goes from panic over the possesion of books to laughter with a friend about a television show without missing a beat.
75: Here Bradbury chooses to describe a conversation rather than recount it with dialogue. In my opinion (an opinion I believe is shared with many-- even most-- of the masters of the craft, including On Writing author Stephen King), dialogue will always be more effective than a narrated conversation.
79: Bradbury here gives an effective portrait of Montag's current state of mind.
85: "...when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want." It's a very quotable line, and Bradbury even throws in humor by having Montag and Faber talking about the line's quotability.

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Hearth and the Salamander

3: "It was a pleasure to burn." The opening line of the novel is so simple, and yet so effective in setting the tone for Bradbury's dystopia.
6: This is the first scene of dialogue, and it all reads far too British for me to buy into this as an American setting. (Example: "How oddly you say that.")
22: Bradbury does an excellent job of creating tension here. He also manages to begin showing the reader that Montag does not love his life, by having Montag insist that he does.
49: Here, Bradbury miffs me. Montag vommits on the floor, and his wife's reaction is, "Why'd you do that?" Even in this dystopia, even with this lethargic slug of a woman, I find "Why'd you do that?" an unlikely reaction.

Stephen King's On Writing: A Life of Writing

In his memoir, Stephen King stresses the importance of constantly being in the process of writing in order to be a good writer, and, as is evident throughout On Writing, King practices what he preaches.
I think that constantly writing has just become the natural order of things for King after so many years in the habit: King began writin when he was five or six years old, and hasn't quit yet.
King states in the book that he writes three hundred sixty four days per year (three hundred sixty five on leap years). He doesn't even take off for his birthday. I think that when you write with that much consistency (and read at least fifty books per year-- King tallies around eighty per year), you devekop a keen sense of awareness of what writing works and what has to go.
King continues to write, even after his accident-- a testament to his adament stance on the importance of making writing into a daily regimen.
King even asserts his opinion into his novels. In Bag of Bones, my favorite of all of his works, his main character is novelist Mike Noonan. When asked why he insists on writing every single day, Noonan replies simply, "So I won't forget the story."
Stephen King writes every day, and it seems to work for him. He has written around fifty books, and is considered one of the best-- and most popular-- authors of his generation. If you're a budding writer, you could do worse than to take King's approach to the writing life.  As King says in the close of his memoir, "Writing is... as much the water of life as qny other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up."