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Stephen King - Main - Neil Gaiman Interviews Stephen King:

Some things I learned from reading Neil Gaiman's interview of Stephen King:

~King is writing a novel named after me ;)  (Joyland) about a serial killer stalking an amusement park.  About time seeing how his first novel was name after my baby sister who wasn't old enough to read it at the time.  Not that she was a baby just a preteen and Carrie was definitely PG13.

~He lived in a rented trailer house with small children when he wrote and sold Carrie.  (I knew this but being reminded as I sit in my own rented trailer house gives it a bit of poignancy.)

He's only ten years older than me.  (Thus if I'd been on the same track ie had the same dedication I'd have published my first novel in 1987 or at least finished one.)

~Both of his sons are published authors and King thinks his son Joe Hill is a better writer than he.

He and Tabitha met in their University Library. (Ed and I, tho we'd seen each other around campus for years, first started talking to each other in our high school library senior year.)

~They have a large African turtle in their yard that likes to ravish rocks.

OK so some of the tidbits are of more significance than others.

The one that reached out and grabbed me was:

~He writes his stories every day between 8am and Noon.

That's the main reason why he's published novels in the double digits while I haven't finished a single one of the twenty odd I've started.

And the one that gave me shivers and got my head to nodding:

~He has an implicit trust that has yet to fail him that whatever his story needs will be there for him when it's time.  In other words, he doesn't wait until he knows every last thing about the story before plunging into writing it and doesn't let whatever difficulties with story elements that arise during the writing stop him from pushing on nor even keep him awake at night.

He and Gaiman share that trait.  The two of them talk about it as though there is something magical or mystical about it.

That right there is my major issue.  I don't trust the process.  I don't trust my stories to get themselves told.  I don't like the messes that get made when I loose control.  And once a mess is made I either avoid the file entirely or fiddle with surface details endlessly letting the heart and energy of the story die.  Like putting feathers and frills on and ugly child.

I talk a lot about writing my stories.  I write a lot about writing my stories.

It's time to put my paws where my mouth is.  To pause the talk about and apply all those thoughts, words, emotions etc to the stories.  It's time to plant my fingers on the keyboard and I don't mean to blog, chat, social network, email...

It's time be the storyteller again.

Or admit that I'm a fraud.  A storyteller in the sense of that word that rhymes with mire.