Dear Stephen King- It’s Your Time To Buy Lunch

Dear Stephen King,

I don’t mean to air our dirty laundry but it is your turn to pick up lunch or at least a cup of coffee. Been far too long since we last spoke in person, feels like forever.

Hell if you force me to deal with reality I’ll concede we have never spoken in person and that is as they say a damn shame.

Yeah I know you have lots of things to do and am sure that there are plenty of people you enjoy spending time with besides me. I suspect you receive lots of requests from people you have never met and I don’t expect that my saying it’s your turn to buy lunch is going to magically make you call me out of the blue to set a date.

That is ok.

I Am Not Your Biggest Fan

I am a fan of your work but I don’t claim to be your biggest fan. I wouldn’t know how to measure it so I couldn’t begin to offer a valid argument for why I should be granted such a title.

Nor am I aware of it bequeathing any special status, privilege or license so I am not even sure if I really would want the title. I think I might prefer to be number 87, 131 or 283.

Hell, now that you are on Twitter I am one of almost 200,000 followers. I don’t particularly mind that title, it is better than minion or groupie.

Thought I might share that I have this partially formed idea for a story floating around the back of my mind. It started last summer when I was reading 11/22/63.

I was midway through the book and listening to Johnny Cash sing Hurt when it came to me.

Been sort of mulling it over ever since.

I can feel it sitting in the back of my mind and can almost see it but I can’t quite make it out. Sort of reminds me of holding water in the palm of your hand.

You don’t dare it squeeze it too tightly or most of it will slip between your fingertips and go elsewhere leaving you with a wet hand but nothing to show for it.

How Do You Collect Your Story Ideas?

I suppose if we were to grab that lunch I mentioned I would ask you about how you come up with ideas for stories and whether you collect or gather them in a file.

I read your book On Writing and suspect you shared that information there but I don’t remember. Got so much going on right now I can barely remember my own name so trying to pull together your method/suggestion regarding this is hard.

Truth is even if I could recite every word from the book I would still want to ask you questions. I would still want to hear what you said in person because I am certain I could learn a lot.

I like hearing/reading what writers have to say about their business and how they go about their work. I find it interesting but at the same time it is clear to me that we all have to do it our way.

We can only borrow so much from others before we have to focus on our methods and our voice. That is just how it works or at least my perception.

Since I haven’t published any novels yet I suppose I have to be open to other possibilities.

About Twitter

I suppose I should confess that I am curious to see what happens when this post is shared online. It will be tweeted and maybe now that you are on Twitter you might come across it.

Maybe you’ll see it and want to check out the blog, follow me on Twitter or engage in some sort of manner before lunch. I don’t have any expectations of anything but I figure if you don’t take the shot you’ll never make a basket so what the hell.

See you around.