Dear Reader,
This is really two posts that I decided to squish into one when I realized they were both about my favorite author, Stephen King. I guess you noticed something different at the beginning of this post. I am now giving you, my readers, salutations. After my last post, I finished creating my sacred space, so I decided to draw a new Observation. I shuffled the cards and pulled the one off the top. It read: "write a letter." Ms. Epel suggested in the corresponding chapter that this means one should start off each writing day with a letter as a warm-up. She gave examples of established authors who do, or did, this activity, including John Steinbeck, who wrote a letter to his editor each time he tackled his manuscript for East of Eden. If you ask my wife, she will tell you that letter writing is not my thing. Not that I'm bad at it, I just don't do it.
My first idea was to write a letter to the children I hope to one day have. I would then show them, when they could understand, how I wrote personal letters to them and how it helped me become a successful author (I know, I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but It's not that far off to think I'll have children some day). For some reason, though, I just couldn't feel the energy I thought I would feel. I sat down and thought about it some more, but I couldn't think of any other kind of letter that would help my writing.
So, I started shuffling cards and watching some television online, and as I watched, a scene from the new show I was trying reminded me of Stephen King (I'll explain why in just a bit). It was then that I remembered what my favorite part of a Stephen King book (fiction or non-fiction) is. King almost always writes a foreword or an afterword, and he always addresses them to his readers. More specifically, he addresses each one to Constant Reader. I know I haven't built up much of a following on my blog yet, but I know that there is at least one person who is reading this, and that is all I need. So, Reader (I won't call you Constant Reader, that's Mr. King's thing), I will now be writing a letter to you every time I update my blog. I hope you find it enjoyable, and I hope it keeps you coming back for more.
Speaking of Stephen King, part two of this post explains how that scene I mentioned made me think of him. I am working on a young-adult novel. This is strictly YA. There are no vampires, werewolves, fairies, or any other fantastical creatures. It revolves around a group of five kids in high school, three girls and two guys. I wrote the first four chapters almost a year ago, and I was really proud of them. So proud, in fact, that I did something I try to avoid at all costs. I shared them with my wife.
I have nothing against my wife. In fact, as Stephen King mentions that his wife is the person, if no one else, for whom he writes, I would say that mine is the same. She is beautiful, intelligent, and an even better writer than I am. So, when I say that I avoid reading my stuff to her, just know that it has nothing to do with her talent as a critic. I have this fear that if I share something before it's ready, that's like putting the final nail in the coffin, kiss it goodbye because it's gone forever. I know it sounds ridiculous, but every writer has some sort of superstition, and that's mine.
That being said, I felt it was ready to be shared. I read the first two chapters to her and she loved them, laughing in the right places and giving positive feedback. However, the third chapter started in the girls' bathroom. The scene changed before the chapter ended, but my wife made me stop there. She told me that the scene felt forced. It didn't sound like what a scene in a girls' bathroom should sound like, and it definitely was not as good as the first two chapters.
For those of you who don't know, Stephen King may have never become Stephen King if it was not for his wife. The first novel he ever sold, Carrie, he threw in the trash after only a handful of pages. He, too, was writing a scene that took place in a girls' bathroom, and he, too, was finding trouble making it work. Really, the main difference is that he knew it was off, whereas it took my wife to tell me something was wrong. Anyway, Tabitha, Stephen King's wife, fetched the pages from the trash, read them, and forced him to finish writing. She promised to help him with the parts he found difficult.
Back to my story, my wife made the same promise. Unfortunately, because of my superstition, I felt like the story was already dead. One of the big obstacles I faced was that each of the first five chapters were to be written in first person, but with someone else narrating each time. Fast forward almost a year, and as I sat watching a scene in a girls' bathroom take place on a television show, I thought that I should pay attention so I would know how to write that scene. That made me think of my wife's promise, which made me think of Tabitha King's influence, which made me think of Stephen King, which cause me to realize that I should write a letter to you, Reader.
There you have it. A crazy, confusing look at my train of thought and how my weird little mind works. Some people wonder how a writer can be working so hard for one day and get so little done. I don't know about other writers, but that is the way I get easily distracted. Ironically, it is also the way I find my way back. It's funny how that works sometimes.
Thank you, Reader, for bearing with me for this long. I look forward to hearing your feedback and, one day, presenting you with my first novel. Until then, I leave you with this quote, this time and all posts in the future:
Speak freely. Write candidly. Read endlessly.
Yours,
James
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