King's advice to aspiring authors to write short stories is helpful. So was his advice to take writing seriously. You're not washing a car, you're writing a book. 
 However, some of his advice was subjective and personal. His suggestion to fly by the seat of your pants and not to worry about how your book will end until you get there helped explain why I don't like the endings of his novels very much. Planning and outlining may not work for him, but it works for a lot of other authors. His other concept, "writing with the door shut" works well metaphorically, but in real life that can come across as rude and self-important. 
 I skipped over the autobiographical stuff. Wasn't interested.