CREEK ROAD GANG
Your Subtitle text
Thoughts from the Editor:
October 2010
copyright 2010
As a child watching Disney serials on television, I would find myself almost unable to bear the tension of some implied danger. Jumping up, I’d bounce sideways down the hallway to the kitchen, where my mother was cooking or cleaning. I’d tell her what was happening on the program, and how exciting it was, and then I’d bounce sideways back to the television, hoping the scary part was over.
And then there was the kiddie roller coaster. In retrospect, I know it was a rather tame affair, running on a mostly flat surface, with some low and gentle upward curves of track, but it terrified me when I was six. My cousin wanted to ride it, and so did my three-year-old little brother, but not me! I had to ride it anyway, though, because my mother believed it unsafe to allow my three-year-old brother to brave it without his big sister to keep him safe inside the car. I hated every terrifying moment, and was shaking when I finally got off the ride.
A few years later, this same brother and same cousin dragged me to see Thirteen Ghosts, the original 3-D version. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but they scared me anyway, and I never would have chosen the movie on my own. I well remember sitting horrified through the whole thing, although I admit I kept removing my 3-D glasses so I wouldn't have to see the ghosts. Meanwhile, my brave cousin and little brother went back to wait in the ever-growing line at the concession stand, where dozens of frightened children like themselves were seeking refuge.
I admit to voluntarily watching on television the 1963 film The Haunting, not once, but several times. What possessed me to try it, I can’t recall; it was out of character for me. But I do remember screaming the first time I watched that movie, and screaming at that same point, even though I knew exactly what was coming, at each subsequent viewing.
In adulthood, I’ve avoided roller coasters and scary movies. And I’ve walked out on some films that seemed safe in advance, but turned out to have what were for me unbearable levels of tension.
I don’t like being scared.
And that’s why I got to this venerable age without ever having read Stephen King.
While taking a semester abroad in Egypt last spring, my son bought a lot of Stephen King books. (Go figure! We send the kid to Egypt to buy American best sellers?) One day this past summer, when I picked him up from his summer job, he began talking about the book of stories he was reading. “You know, Mom,” he said, “Stephen King is a really good writer.”
“I don’t read scary stories,” I said, as if he didn’t already know.
“But if you could get past that, Mom, you’d like him.”
We stopped at the supermarket, and I sent him in to pick up the cookies he wanted, while I sat in the car, leafing through his Stephen King book of stories.
What do you know? The kid was right.
Mind you, I stopped reading before it got too scary, but I was delighted with King – the easy conversation, the descriptions that were just enough to bring me to the setting and show me the people, the unfolding of character, the mildly uneasy mood slowly building. Wow!
That’s the long version of why I have just now, ten years after it was released in October of 2000, read Stephen King’s On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft.
King tells the reader, right up front, that this is not an autobiography. Instead, he gives snapshots of his growing – from imaginative child to imaginative adult, through early years playing in the woods, where, unknowing, he wiped himself with poison ivy, into high school years where his lampooning of a teacher landed him in big trouble but also landed him a job writing, past counter-culture college years of writing relationship poetry and meeting his wife. He takes us on a whirlwind tour of a man remaining true to his stories, learning from rejections, burning with creativity, trying to make a living, take care of a family, and, above all, striving to be and to do what’s in him to be and to do. I wasn’t expecting an inspirational book, but I found one; that, and a whole lot more.
After charming the reader with stories of his life, King shifts his focus to what he knows to be important about the process of writing. He recommends that you bring the best possible tools. For instance, he advises learning the grammar you missed in school (even recommends a particular text). I was drawn by his suggestion to write in a room, preferably without a phone, but definitely with a door which needs to remain closed during writing. (Would my family see it as a sign that they need to let me write, or would they keep popping in to ask why the door is closed? Would the pets tire of throwing their bodies against the door? Would the lack of phone be helpful, or would I just have to go further to answer the phone that no one else was bothering to answer?)
King devotes some attention to drafting, revisions, when to show work to others, language, and the centrality of story. (He illustrated some of the revision work with his writing of the story “1408,” which happened to be the story of his I first hit on in my son’s book.) Some of the most helpful suggestions and examples for me were those relating to goal setting and organization, and also persistence. I also enjoyed his talk about genre writing and the literary prejudices against it. And I absolutely loved the sections devoted to work on dialogue.
King is plain spoken, direct and clear. He says, for instance, that if you don’t have time enough to spend four to six hours a day reading and writing, you’re probably not going to be a writer. He encourages reading, and lots of it. From a list of books he had read within the preceding few years, I could see he reads lots of different styles, genres, and eras of books.
I recommend, most heartily: if you haven’t read this book yet, read it!
Read it for the insight into this tremendously successful writer; read it for the pleasure of those growing up stories; read it for the help, organization, and inspiration it can provide to your own writing process.
Read it, because you just might fall in love with it. I’m so taken with this book that I’m going to push past some of my scaredy-cat roots to read more of Stephen King’s work!
~ Kate Lydon
