Stephen King: King of Craft

As a fourth grader, I was living in D.C. while my superhero parents were working on my dad's medical degree.  I say "they" rather than "he" because it was truly a team effort.  I'm sure if you're a single guy, you can easily put down roots in a library, never moving again until that day you're handed a diploma.  As a medical student with a wife, and not one child, but also a set of twins, it's impossible to complete this herculean task without a willing partner.

Still, my parents made it through those grueling years before we were really old enough to be embarrassed by hand me downs and few changes of clothes.  Entertainment was anything that was free, and so we spent a lot of time on the wooded hill behind our rental house, growing our memories from the fertile soil of pretend.

I devoured books.  Painfully shy, I relied on them to function socially in the fiction worlds in ways I simply could not in the real one. I think we can all admit that we are all a little nuts, and  most of us keep that carefully hidden in the deep inner folds our minds. A writer's mind, however, finds itself splattered without reservation upon a page, and, for better or worse, twisted writer's minds were the playgrounds where I grew up.  With my parents so preoccupied with the business of preparing for a career, there wasn't much supervision for the books I read. I found myself reading Pet Cemetery, fascinated by the concept of zombie dogs.  I imagined roadkill running around on broken limbs and matted coats.  I was horrified, yet deliciously intrigued by the idea.

Yesterday I started reading On writing: A Memoir of the Craft, written by that far less than homicidal author than childhood me would have expected, Stephen King.  The intention of the book is not to do an autobiography but to teach about the craft of being a fiction writer.  A great in the fiction world wants to teach something?  Yes, please!

It has been an utterly fascinating, brutally honest read, and one I highly recommend for aspiring writers.  I don't recommend it based on my amazing success and therefore drawing on my large deposits of credibility, but rather because it makes being successful feel like an attainable goal.  He made many mistakes, including tossing out the first four pages of his first great book, Carrie, only to be fished out that circular file by his wiser half to change their lives forever.

I stopped thinking about Mr. King's books sometime in the sixth grade, so the image of the hammer wielding psychopath curled over a typewriter was still there, still etched in my little girl imagination.  The grown up in me would never think such an absurd thing, yet I found myself a little surprised at how normal an upbringing and life he's led, and, dare I say it, enough like mine to give me pause.

So far what I've gotten out of this book is as follows:

1.  Chucking out a perfectly good book, only to go back to it later is normal.  My current book has already experienced this fate - actually completely trashing it's entire rendition two years ago.  Maybe rewriting it wasn't a bad idea after all.
2.  Your support system is crucial.  My husband has never doubted me.  In my moments of self-doubt, he becomes very seriously put out, making forceful rules about the expressions of negativity I am not allowed to say now or ever again concerning myself or my work.  He insists it's in the contract, but I don't recall that particular thing anywhere on the marriage license.
3.  It's totally normal to have no idea where your ideas come from, and just as normal to have to wait for them to show up in whatever volume they see fit.  This explains why while really busy editing - which I hate - a completely new and unrelated book to my current series has been harassing me for the last two months.  I finally have given in, becoming the shorthand secretary to the Muse until I have the time to actually flesh out my notes into something real - occasionally sneaking in a page or two while I really should be paying more attention in my Finance class.  Oh, grad school...how tired I already am of you...

My favorite quote from the book?

"Writing is a lonely job.  Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference.  They don't have to make speeches.  Just believing is usually enough."

I have the support and the ideas.  According to Mr. King, I'll be just fine.

Dog Park Wednesday

Our dog park days through the week are numbered. School is going to get started for us all pretty soon, so we grabbed our dogs (including our foster - the big yellow lab) and went to the dog park on dad's day off.

Near our house, there is a most awesome of dog parks.  It's not the kind of dog park that is essentially a fenced in football field.  Oh no! It's so much better than that!

This fenced in gully has hills and trees to climb. Best of all... there is a little stream where dad skips rocks for the boys.


The ice cold water doesn't bother the dogs.  They would swim for sticks for hours if we let them.  Try as we might, we end up about as muddy as them, wrestling the sticks out of their mouths. 



There are always little bugs to catch, and rock treasures which the kids sneak into their pockets to bring home.  But - this time the best thing was a snake.

I love snakes - they are such impossible creatures.  No legs, but with a little motivation they are faster and more graceful over land then I could ever hope to be.

I showed it to the kids, and they thought it was the coolest thing of the whole summer. It's not often we get to see critters other than dogs at the dog park.

Sigh.  I love hanging out with the boys.  I wish school would never start.

The Mazerunner Series - James Dashner

James Dashner is from my neck of the woods, and I'm a big fan of supporting local authors.  My precocious oldest son, Beckett, had already read the first book and loved it, so with that recommendation I decided to give it a try.

Most of the books I read have a female protagonist, and so this was a very different point of view.  I never thought it would have made a difference, but it turns out that it was different enough that I had a difficult time getting into it at first. After some adjustment, I found the main character someone I could sympathize in, and the reading went quite a bit easier.

The gist of the story line is that there is a group of boys that are trapped in this walled little town of sorts, and every day they have to go outside the gates to find their way through the maze to escape.  None of the boys have any idea how they got into the little town, nor do they have any memories at all before the day they found themselves there.  The only thing they know is their way out is the maze, and if they don't find it before dark, then monsters are going to eat them.

I give this series a 3.5*.  It was good - not a "wow everyone must read this" kind of good, but definitely worth your time.  Two of the three books had "A must read for fans of the Hunger Games" written on their cover.  I'd agree that there's some common themes there, but they are not the same caliber of book.  I've read The Hunger Games 3x because I loved it so much.  I don't regret this read, but I'm unlikely to read it again.

Dodge Viper for a Rockstar

Once in a while, something awesome happens when we can pretend we're part of the rich and famous crowd.  Ya, we don't have a lot of money, but we have a really great life.  We've got healthy kids, and most of the time get our needs met with just a little left over for savings. 

It'd be nice to have some of the more expensive things in life, but let's be real... you can choose to be wealthy, or you can choose to have kids and be a stay at home mom.  Some people get both, but most of us don't.  We made that choice without a seconds hesitation with our first pregnancy, and haven't regretted it for a second each year that has passed.

But still - it's nice to get a chance to pretend just the same.

My husband's boss had a Dodge Viper that he let him borrow.  I don't know how he talked him into that - other than my better half can sell ice to eskimos.  Somehow, we ended up with one for a weekend.

It was a big car that has a tiny little cockpit - I barely fit since I'm six feet of Amazon.  It was super fun, but my joy was more for my husband than me.  Let's take stock of how lucky I am here.

I have a husband who's made it a priority to go without so that I can do the stay at home mom thing.  He's not complained once as I try to do school - hopefully so one day we can both give our kids opportunities that we haven't had.  Best of all he believes in me - footing the bill for professional editing and publicity.  He's put all his dreams on hold for his wife and kids.

He's a rockstar.

So, for this one weekend he got to live this fantasy, and I stepped aside so he could share it with his boy.  Beckett was not nearly as impressed, as you can see, but I was super happy to see this grin eat up my husband's whole face when he rolled up in this monster.  It was great - two of my most favorite men in the world, rolling along in a Viper.  Does it get better than that?