Slapping Stephen King

Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining. 

Photograph: Ronald Grant

Damn you Stephen King!!! You brought it back. You pulled it from a place of rest. You hit me with it - hard. You hit me till my voice stammered, my body froze. You hit me till my fingers hovering silently above the keys.

You hit me with my own insecurities. All it took was a few lines from your book, "Stephen King On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft."

I was horrified by what you told me, "If I want to be a writer, I must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.  There's no way around these two things, no shortcuts."

My first apartment without a living, breathing man, was filled with dead ones - Yeats, Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, Tolstoy... I fanned their pages, bent their binders, dented their covers, put markers at page 167, 240, 484, moved it forward and backwards, as if flipping through them meant I knew them.

When I studied Tolstoy's War and Peace, I pretended I was a speed reader and finger feed my way to page 842 before I lost interest. He was too intense.

So I guess I'm not a writer. I don't read enough. I don't write enough. I am just a women who spends a large chunk of her life, playing with the tic, tic, tic, space, tap, tap, tap, return, of her laptop.

I don't know how to dream up stories, or unfold complicated plots. I tap what haunts me. I tap what lingers at the back of my throat.

I am a blogger who thrives on your reply.

I blog because I don't know how to write a book. I blog because facebook status updates, and cancer discussion boards are not enough. I blog because of people like Chris.

Today, two days late for my INSECURE WRITER'S SUPPORT GROUP post, an unknown commenter named Chris tells me...

I've just now stumbled upon your blog. I've tended to peruse blogs relating to catstir, since my diagnosis back in September. I even drunkenly started one, though I am normally too shy and insecure and neglectful of it to comment and therefore leave a trace of it somehow. But, I'll take that risk because I have to comment tonight after reading what you said about catstir being a gift. Usually, I am loathe to call it a gift. I keep trying to find a different word like "lesson" or something else. However, you made me look at it differently tonight with these words: "...I received my first catstir gift - knowing I wanted to live". 

I was slowly recovering from one of the worst and scariest bouts of clinical depression I'd ever had right before I found out I had this. Catstir did, indeed, mysteriously (to me)take the word "suicide" out of my mental tape player. That truly is a gift. There is no other way of looking at it anymore. "Knowing I want to live and fight to live". I can't even express how heartbroken I am for the loss of your son. Thank you for speaking up about depression...I have to stop now because I'm really in need of a tissue (sorry, I can't help it). I just wanted to let you know that your words, and your willingness to share them, are a gift as well.  ~Chris

I blog knowing there are those who relate to my pain and my joy. People who are not afraid to speak their truth - who are not afraid to cry openly or laugh loudly.

Thank you for reminding me why I tap and slap away at what moves me, what stays with me, what demands to be heard.

With love and gratitude...

xo,MOnkeyME

P.S. There was this one day, after band camp and before reading Stephen King, when I was almost certain I was a writer.  And this is some of what I wrote:  MY WRITING



SPECIAL THANKS to the old man who blames his neighbors, republicans and fox news for all his woes.  Who enjoys throwing rocks at geese, printing out pages of my blog, and passing it round for others to read. Yes, I'll take all the readers I can get - especially the lonely ones.