Not long ago, I wrote about the incomparable Neil Gaiman and the profound impact his artistry has had on my own, and my life in general. Last night I finished “Fragile Things,” which I recommend to anyone with eyes and the ability to read, and after pondering it in the world of Dream as well as Waking, I picked up “Duma Key” by Stephen King. It was a simple gesture – nothing more than “the next book to read,” but when I cracked it open and read the brief prologue, “How to Draw a Picture (I),” a rush of realization and emotion washed over me, and something never before understood, a knot unraveling, became clear. There is a simple sentence in that prologue describing a man sitting (or perhaps lying) in bed at night, staring up at the darkness of his ceiling, that when I read, I realized that what was playing on the silver-screen of my mind was far more than what was scribed upon the page. I was feeling the texture of the sheets, the firmness of the bed. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore, and smell the salt in the air. And all of this came together, revealing that it was Stephen King who taught me HOW to write. It was he who threw me so deeply into the vortex of my mind’s eye that I was viscerally experiencing the worlds he crafted around me, and it is that vantage from which ALL of my “good” writing comes.
When I am writing just about anything, if I am doing it “right” (or at least in the manner which feels the most powerful), I find myself standing amidst the story I am telling. A silent, non-corporeal observer who merely recounts the events that unfold before my eyes. When the writing is best I have no hand in the telling, but am rather a documentarian of what has already come to be in a world that exists only between neural pathways of a human brain. And I now realize, in the mundane action of picking up a book, that Stephen King is solely responsible for teaching me that method. A by-product of the genius of his storytelling, and aside from my wife and children, the most magnificent boon I have ever received.
Now, as I grow older, these sorts of revelations become more interesting and meaningful. Introspection is the game of older (wo)men, and being a dedicated guardian of my child-spirit, it has not come easily to me. But these moments, when lucidity descends upon my otherwise-chaotic mind, I feel deeply in touch with the divinity within, and am sure, that at some point along my path, things will all begin to make sense.
