Thank you, Stephen King.

I stopped reading you when I was 17. There was a reason for this: I’d run through everything you’d ever written by that time and I was burnt out on you, so I went on to glomming my next author, whom I have also never read again. Lather, rinse, repeat throughout my life. Glom, abandon, glom, abandon. Yes, I am an evil reader.

I’m caught in a perpetual spin cycle concerning how I can classify what I wrote, which I can’t. Still can’t. Lately, I’ve just kind of been looking at publishing as a business (‘cuz I got one of those press thingies now) and getting a wee bit discouraged when it’s finally drilled into my head that classifications aren’t just nice to have or helpful, they’re necessary. “We don’t know where to put it” isn’t just a statement of fact, it’s a deep, deep statement on business in general. In fact, after yesterday’s post springboarding off of Kara Lennox‘s Romancing the Blog post, I realized that my writing is so niche it may have an audience in the double digits if I’m lucky. That’s my variable; some thing (don’t know what) in all my writing has taken it out of an otherwise orderly classification.

Today I had reason to be directed to the acceptance speech Stephen King made in 2003 for an award from the National Book Foundation. He said: I never in my life wrote a single word for money.”

Two things struck me: 1) I could be a lot more supportive of my husband and 2) it’s okay that I’m not doing this for the money.

Dude, I am so going to start reading you again. It’s been a while.

UPDATE: Just after I posted this, I found a thread on A Motley Vision concerning Seth Godin’s passion/pop curve, which pretty much let me know I’m not alone in this endeavor.

2 thoughts on “Thank you, Stephen King.

  • June 21, 2008 at 11:49 am
    Permalink

    Great post!

    I do the same thing. For a while I read everything I can get my hands on from one author, then burn out and never touch them again. I did it with Tony Hillerman, and Robert Ludlum, among others.

    I have read some Stephen King. He is an incredible writer and his character building is awesome, but I’m just not into horror that much so never went overboard with him. However, if you’ve never read his book on writing (On Writing) get thee to Amazon immediately! It’s my favorite writing book of all time.

    I can’t tell you how many rejection letters I’ve gotten that said, “This is great but it’s too romance-y for suspense but not romance-y enough for romance. ::sigh::

    Reply
  • June 21, 2008 at 12:02 pm
    Permalink

    I can’t tell you how many rejection letters I’ve gotten that said, “This is great but it’s too romance-y for suspense but not romance-y enough for romance. ::sigh::

    Kara, have you had those published? If so, do you think it’s because you suddenly had the “sweet-spot epiphany” or did the industry just catch up to you?

    Reply

Leave a Reply to MoJo Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *