Fahrenheit 451 "The Hearth and the Salamander" Response

Everyone mentions that Fahrenheit 451 is an extremely interesting and exciting book, but reading the first few sentences, I got little confused as to why a fireman was starting a fire instead of putting one out. Eventually I understood why Montag, a fireman, was burning houses and books. Montag lives in a society in the future where no literature is allowed and is almost completely reliant on technology. Their society gives out all their information through technologies and gives only the information it wants the people to know to keep the people from questioning their surroundings. Montag starts to think and question his world after he meets Clarisse. When Clarisse was introduced in the book, I knew she was different just by the way she approached Montag. I felt that Clarisse was a guardian angel of Montag. She was described  in white and suddenly disappeared after she changes the mind of Montag. Shortly after that, Montag's wife, Mildred, overdoses on sleeping pills. The thought of everyone taking sleeping pills just to sleep is a crazy idea. It really shows that they could quite possibly be constantly exhausted or depressed. Montag tries to talk to Mildred about what had happened, but they don't openly talk to each other. they have a loveless marriage much like Ethan Frome's. Captain Beatty was a quite interesting character; he was much more personal. It seems like he has read many books before. If our society today was anything near what theirs is like, I would be very much depressed. Our world and Fahrenheit 451's world are completely different; it would change everything.

Stephen King On Writing Final Essay.

From the beginning of life, everyone always tells you "Practice makes perfect" and you're worked and pushed as hard as possible until you think you just can't work anymore. In baseball, the more balls you hit, the farther they'll go; In track, the more you run, the longer you'll withstand; and to Steven King, the more you write, the better writer you'll become. King believes the more your write the more successful you'll likely be. At only 6, King wrote his first story while sick, looking for anything to entertain himself. He wrote first of a story partially copied from Combat Casey, and presented it to his mother. She was delighted, but encouraged him to write his own. About 6 years later, he wrote a story called Happy Stamps. He eventually sent the story off to a magazine and received his first rejection letter (King 27). The rejection letter had a note; a note that bore, "Loose pages plus paperclip equal correct way to submit copy." King thought it was cold advice, but never once stapled a manuscript since. After receiving that rejection letter, he labeled it "Happy Stamps" and poked it onto a nail he hung himself on the wall. By age 14, the nail could no longer support the weight of his rejection slips, and by 16, King began receiving rejection letters with hand written notes revealing much needed advice. The first of which was on a story called "The Night of a Tiger" who's inspiration came from an episode of The Fugitive (King 29). During his freshman year in high school, King acquired an idea; rewrite a story of a movie. This movie was The Pit and the Pendulum. This book turned out to be his first best seller around school, until the end of the day. King was called to the principals office where he was told he could not turn the school into his personal marketplace. As soon as summer vacation came along, he printed four-dozen copies of an original called The Invasion of the Star-Creatures and sold all but four. On to his sophomore year at Lisbon High School, he was appointed editor of the school newspaper, The Drum. The Drum never prospered and only published one issue between 1963 and 1964. This encouraged King to produce a school newspaper of his own which he called The Village Vomit. The Village Vomit led to a great deal more trouble in the principles office after a teacher confiscated the the newspaper collection. He was almost completely shut off of The Drum, but then was informed, the Lisbon Weekly Enterprise had offered him an interview for a job, while still in high school (King 45.) He was appointed the sports section and was told “You'll learn if you try.” King took his share of English Literature classes, but his boss, Gould, taught him more than any of them. Just two months after his senior class trip, a magazine bought his story “Graveyard Shift” for $200 (King 50.) He had only sold two other stories for just $65 shortly before. In the late winter of 1973 at age 26, King started Carrie, and was sent off to Doubleday. By 1973, Carrie was accepted as a Doubleday book, but publication didn't start until spring of 1974 (King 75.) By this time, King had already started another called Second Coming when he received information that the paperback rights were sold for four hundred thousand dollars, leading King to the highlight of his writing career (King 78.) Following the climax of King's success, King continues to better himself by reading and writing anything he can everyday in order to maintain his writing modern and impressive. Today, King has written and published 49 novels. Just goes to show you, Practice truly does make perfect.