NaNoBlog: Day 2 -- No Rainouts For Writers

It is the evening of November 2nd, and most of my friends are watching baseball.

Most of my friends don't even like baseball.

Actually, most of my friends are lamenting the rain delay that is preventing them from watching baseball. They want to watch History Being Made. Hey, the Cubs might win. If they do, it will indeed be historical. Not, you know, Felix Baumgartner jumping from the stratosphere historical, but yeah, historical. I get it.

Growing up, I loved baseball. A deep part of me still loves baseball. I played baseball. I collected baseball cards. Even chewed the crappy gum. I rooted for the Tigers, even though they have never, within the span of my personal memory, not sucked. (Actually, that's not true. In 1987, they were pretty darned good. The one game I ever saw from inside Tiger Stadium, they beat the Angels.)

A big part of me wishes I had as much passion for the game as I did back then. That I wanted nothing more than to sit through this rain delay until the game resumed at 12:15 tomorrow morning and maybe watch the Cubs win the series for the first time in over a century. That I was on the phone with my Dad, both of us watching the field dry, talking about how, either way, this was one hell of a game.

Me? I wrote. I encouraged my kids to write. While the world focuses on the final game of the World Series (it IS the final game, right?), November 2 is, in my household, Day Two of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and we've been focusing instead on our word count goals.

And while it's not a World Series Pennant, I'm pretty happy with our progress. Both my older children are participating this year, and so far our days one and two have actually been pretty similar. All three of us got off to a slow start on Day One -- something under 1% or so... and all three of us hauled today and landed very close to our daily word count average that will help us to hit our overall goals for the month. For me, doing the full NaNo experience, I'm shooting for 50,000 words by the end of November. My children, who haven't ever really written anything over 1,000 words, I talked them into putting themselves out there and shooting for 20,000.

And I'm pretty darned proud of 'em, because tomorrow, if things work out half as well as they did today, they'll be ahead of schedule.

And I'm happy to be here for them, encouraging them and coaxing them to victory. It may not make history, but it'll make a difference to them, and, really, that's all the history I need.

NaNoWriMo Day TWO WordCount
ME: 3348/50,000
Son: 1332/20,000
Daughter: 1133/20,000

NaNoWriMo: Here we go again!!!

Last year (or was it two years ago? I've already forgotten) I once again failed spectacularly to create a novel in one month. But -- and I say this knowing full well I say it every time -- this year will be different.

Actually, though, I have good reason to believe it really will. First, there's the issue of time. As in, this year, I actually have it. Being unemployed sucks, but if there's an upside for an aspiring novelist, time has to be the number one positive.

Secondly, I'm walking into this more prepared than I've ever been. I have stacks of notes. Pieces of unfinished works that'll be incorporated into this piece. An actual outline (that I'm still working on, but anticipate finishing before the 1st). And, for the first time ever, I even have a decent sense of what's going to happen in the middle of my story! (This last is of particular importance because I tend to love beginnings and endings, but middles always scare and confuse me. That's why I usually write short stories.)

Third, I have something to prove. And this year, I'm not just proving it to myself, but to my kids as well. I'm pleased to announce, my two 11-year-olds will be joining me in this year's NaNo, under the Young Writers Program! We'll be holding one another accountable, and if they're going to hit their 20k (that's the realistic goal we set together for them), I'm not going to let them down. I've promised them 50k, and that's what they're going to get.

And fourth, speaking of my kids, I have a deeper reason for writing this year. For the first time ever, I've decided to write something in the YA category because I want my children to have something to read that they'll enjoy, that fits their advanced reading level, and that I'd be happy to know they're reading. So this is for them. It's not about finishing my first novel. It's about creating a book that's good enough for their discerning tastes.

Now, last year, I promised and failed to deliver a NaNo live blog. I'm going to promise it this year, too... but this time, like the book, I'm going to deliver. Each night, as I update my wordcount for the day, I'll have something for you, here. Maybe a story excerpt. Maybe a tip I've stumbled across along the way. Maybe even a little something from my kids. Just hit the #NaNoWriMo label and subscribe to the blog.

Are YOU NaNo-ing this year? Tell me how YOU'RE going to accomplish your 50k in the comments!

Adapting for Audio: Shoo, Fly - the introduction

Since I'm adapting some of my short stories into audio dramas for A Flame in the Dark, I thought it might be fun to chronicle some of the differences and similarities in writing for the two formats. In this case, I'm adapting my short story "Shoo, Fly" (available now as part of the 'Zine Killers collection) into a miniseries. Though I'll be adding quite a bit in the way of action and even characters to the series itself, I'm cutting quite a lot out of the narration. As you might expect, narration for readers is a far different animal than narration for listeners. 

So, as an example, here's an excerpt from the opening narration of the short story:

I don't want to speak for what's left of humanity. I have no idea how they thought the world was going to end. Or even if they thought about it at all. If they did, I imagine they thought pretty much along the same lines as I did: A World War III nuclear blast scenario, a fast-acting pestilence -- hell, a zombie apocalypse. But I do guarantee that nobody -- not the Mayans with that calendar they always talked about on the History Channel, not those Nostradamus freaks, not the Nike-wearing Koolaid-drinkers who waited for that comet -- believed that the kingdom of man would be destroyed by houseflies. 

And here are the opening lines from the audio drama:

NARRATOR:
It’s safe, I think, to say nobody expected humanity to go out this way. Global warming. Natural disasters. All-out thermonuclear heck. Zombies, even. I think I personally expected Wrath of God, but I could have handled zombies. I mean, I’d have been alright with it.

(Beat)
But this? This just feels… stupid. 

I'll be adding more as the adaptation continues. Thoughts? Too many changes? Just enough? Let me know in the comments!

How To Write A Syfy Original Movie...

A friend of mine just posted on Facebook that he wants to write a Syfy original movie. Which is awesome, because I've been harboring the same dream for a few months now.

I believe I can make this a reality, because I believe I have figured out the formula. But why should it stop with me and my Facebook buddy? Take a crack at it yourself - but remember the formula.

Ready for it? Here it is: the recipe for crafting hit B-movies for the Syfy Channel!


1. Introduce a random character nobody will care about. Then kill him horribly.

2. Introduce the main character, preferably driving. He can either be introduced with a faithful dog who will outlive almost every other human character, OR, with a group of 4 buddies (2 girls at LEAST), 3 of whom will also die horribly. There should be some inexpensively derivative music on the radio.

Hey!

3. Find a convoluted way to bring "science" into it. This will work best if delivered by somebody nobody will
ever, in a billion years, believe as a scientist. Write the part for Tara Reid, because there's a good chance she's available.

4. Find a roll for one of the following (at least): Dean Cain, Mark Decascos, Judd Nelson, or C. Thomas Howell. Give that person all the "tough guy" lines, unless it's Judd Nelson.

5. Write an entirely context-inappropriate sex scene between two characters who barely know one another, one of whom should have by now suffered the trauma of watching his or her sibling, best friend, or lover die.

6. End Movie.

7. Gotcha. Monster gets back up... kills somebody. Probably Tara Reid.

8. End Movie for real this time.

Don't you forget about me

My brother and sister-in-law sent us an Amazon Gift Card for Christmas, and my wife and I have spent the last couple of weeks deliberating over what to spend it on. By deliberating, of course, I mean, both of us said we'd think about it, until we finally sat down, took a look at a couple options, and made some snap decisions. Among those decisions: The Breakfast Club, on Blu-Ray.

I love John Hughes movies. Hughes was a writer who knew his characters. He knew what each would say in a given situation, based on who they were, how they grew up, and what they wanted. He built them back stories, and used those stories to create rich, funny, and often insightful dialogue.

The Breakfast Club is a wonderful case in point. Sure, it got heavy-handed at times; occasionally melodramatic. But it was high school. This was, in my mind, the genius of this film in particular. The movie was about teenagers and, importantly, told from their points of view. So yes, some things that we as adults don't necessarily find important were, in the scope of the film, possibly the most vital things in the world. And, too, it raises an interesting question: why aren't some of these things more important as adults? In some cases, it is precisely because they were so important to our teenage selves. Cultural and personal identity. Friendship. Judgement. Healthy adults don't have to think about these things, because we worked them out while we were young. On the other hand, there are adults who never did answer these questions, and have simply -- and tragically -- forgotten why they were so necessary to ask.

Hughes also did something too few writers did when it came to teenagers: he asked about life at home, and what they felt about it. And then, in spite of the tragedies great and small evident in each of these kids' lives, he does something even harder for a writer: refuses to solve them. Instead, he looks at the questions, offers no easy answers, but allows his characters to become comfortable with them. It becomes okay to ask. In this, The Breakfast Club almost feels like a fantasy for teenagers: to be given permission from your peers to ask questions, and to cross-mingle outside your comfort zone. 

The narrative is tied together by the "essay" assigned by Mr. Vernon: to answer the question, "who do you think you are." The beauty is, in spite of himself and entirely by accident, he helps them discover exactly that.  And just as importantly, they discover something about each other as well. They don't leave the school with their lives changed. They still go home to the messes they left, but they go armed with a fresh view of their identities and perhaps a bit of understanding. 

A Character in my faith-based novel just dropped an 'f-bomb.' Now what?

A couple things about me. I don't often talk about it here, but yes, I am a follower of Christ. The magazine I edit, the websites I administer, and the work I do as a publisher and as a writer, are all done with the goal in mind of Glorifying Christ in one way or the other.

I also use "adult language." Not merely in my writing, but in general. Probably more than I should. I don't have an issue with swearing, exactly -- I've debated at length on the subject, and that's not really what this post is about (so bear with me, please) -- but I do see the value in expanding my vocabulary, and limiting the less-than-socially-acceptable speech, at least to an extent.

And, yes, more than one of my stories has featured some fairly strong language. Which can be weird for people.

So when I set out to write the current WIP, I had two goals in mind, apart from the obvious goals regarding direction, plotting, and theme: I wanted to point, without preaching, toward the light of God, and, I wanted to try to cut back on the language for this one.

However, I also believe in being honest and True when it comes to the story and the characters. A fellow writer once asked her friends whether their characters speak to them. To a person, each of the writers she asked said, "all the time."

I have been surprised by characters before -- indeed, it's one of my greatest joys when it comes to writing. I once set to work on a fishing horror story. In the story, a father and son are going fishing as they try to reconnect in the wake of the younger son's death. He died, of course, in a fishing accident. It wasn't until I got about halfway through the story, and really started to like both men and sincerely hope they could work it out, that I discovered the fundamental truth of the story: The accident that killed the younger son wasn't an accident; he'd been murdered by his own father.

When I started writing that story, I didn't know that. As far as I was concerned, it was going to go a different direction entirely. The Father was going to save his remaining son's life. They were going to reconnect and live happily ever after. They were possibly going to catch the Monster of the story, and maybe even be millionaires. And even if they didn't. Even if the creature still lurked in the dark lake, at least this relationship would have been healed.

The old man had me fooled.

It made me angry. I didn't delete the story, exactly, but I did determine he wasn't going to take his own kids with him, the old S.O.B. I rewrote the story. Completely. I don't know whether it was the right thing to do, but I couldn't be true to the story and remove what he had done. So, like last of Grimm's Fairy's I altered the scenario and removed a small portion of the tragedy. There was no redeeming the codger, but for whatever reason, I couldn't let his kids go out like that.

So, back to the current story. The point is, characters will be characters. You won't always approve of what they do; and they'll occasionally surprise you. So, in the heat of the moment, during an argument with a friend, centered around a girl with whom he may be in love, this character swore. The Queen-mother, as Ralphie might say, of all dirty words. I hadn't intended for him to do so, certainly. And I certainly hadn't intended for him to use that one. But there it is.

Yes, I know. This doesn't seem like a problem. Either leave it in, or take it out. Decide on the audience you're looking to attract, perhaps, and let that be your guide. It doesn't need to be there, still others are saying, so just hit the 'delete' key.

And I could. The narration is just fine without it. The cadence is still there. The meaning and emotion still intact. Yes. I could simply get rid of it.

But will it still be true?

Any idiot can self-publish... and many DO

Okay, the title seems like an awfully rude thing to say, which can be taken in several offensive directions, depending on who you are and how easily offended.  The problem is, on its face, it's true: literally anyone can self-publish. That's what self-publishing is.  And, thanks to Amazon, it's no longer even cost-prohibitive to do so.  This is not to say that self-publishing is inherently bad. Quite to the contrary! Both as a writer and a reader, I've been appreciative of the avenues available in self-publishing. Not only have many friends been able to get work out quickly, and begin to make names for themselves, but I've found and enjoyed many great stories that would otherwise have still been sitting on the author's hard drive, useless and unread.

DiY is a great thing, but it comes with its own set of perils, of which many authors are unfortunately either unaware or else simply not careful enough. Issues of this kind can be anything from a veritable grab-bag of grammatical misuses and spelling errors, to massive issues of character and plot development. But all of these problems, great and small are mistakes every author makes. Every. The difference? Successful writers don't fly entirely solo. Amateur authors, perhaps too confident in their own abilities -- or else not confident enough, perhaps -- often skimp on the basics. The result: what should have been a decent to excellent book is self-published before it's ready for public consumption, and reads like it was written by a fifth-grader with a condensed thesaurus.

The first of these pitfalls is the unwillingness of the author to "kill his darlings." That is, to eliminate a passage, character, or other part of the book, with which the author is particularly enamored, but does so little to advance the actual story, that it actually succeeds in degrading the overall experience. Believe it or not, a good publisher will actually do more than sell your books. See, because it is their business to sell these pesky things,  it is in their very best interest to make sure they don't suck. And, unlike you, the author, they don't have an emotional attachment to the things you wrote. You can do this without going through a traditional publisher, but first you're going to need a third party to tell you to do it. That's the thing with our darlings: we just don't see how bad they really are.

Which brings us to issue the second: getting an editor. Yes, a decent editor will cost you money.  Editors cost money for a reason: they're better at what they do than your random friends and beta readers are. Their job is not to scan through it, correcting a few grammatical issues, and generally making you feel good about your prowess as a writer. Your friends? Even the honest ones are gonna lie to you a little. Even if the editor is only proofing it, he or she will at least correct the grammatical and punctuation errors, problems with word usage, and glaringly problematic syntax. An excellent editor will even help you work through problem areas in your storytelling. Here's the thing: I don't care how good you are, or how good you think your story is, you need an editor. Preferably one with whom you are unrelated, and who you pay specifically to be critical.

If you're looking here for tips on how to improve your own work yourself, without availing yourself of a professional editor, you're not going to find them. Chances are, we've read the same books, and you're doing everything which can reasonably be expected of you. The simple fact is, you cannot make your book everything it could be. Not on your own. Beta readers are a good start, but ultimately, you're not going to get all the help you need from people with a vested interested in your happiness (that is to say, your friends). Many a tone-deaf hopeful has walked arrogantly into an audition, only to walk out again in tears, all because of well-meaning friends and relatives who didn't want to tell hard truths.

Friends are great. But if you want a professional opinion, you're pretty much stuck either paying for one or finding a patient publisher who'll help you with it.

Once again, I'm not saying not to self-publish. Who knows: maybe it really is as good as you think. But you'll never know how good your story really is if you deny yourself the same tools upon which even Stephen King relies. You could be the next Steinbeck, but if the reader can't get past the syntax and plotting, you're book's just another piece of crap; and you're just another name for readers to avoid.

Goodreads review: The Crow graphic novel

The Crow by James O'Barr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though I saw (and loved) the film the year it came out, I had never read the original graphic novel until a few days ago, after buying it at the Borders closeout sale.

I'm glad I did.

The book is a different experience than the movie. While both are dark and violent, the book is more passionate. It's a love letter of sorts, but filled with pain and loss. The author spends as much time coming to terms with the fact of having a loved one ripped from his life as he does imagining bloody revenge on those who caused it. And the book is better for it.

While some reviewers have decried the simplistic storyline and lack of development of villains and peripheral characters, I think these rather miss the point. The story isn't about these characters. Eric isn't on a quest of absolution and forgiveness; he doesn't (and by extension, we don't) really give a damn about who his murderers are as people, or even why they did what they did.

As O'Barr deftly illustrates, revenge isn't about those upon whom we seek revenge. It isn't about current and future victims. Honestly, it isn't even necessarily about the victim for whom we are seeking vengeance. It's about us. Eric's revenge -- and the story itself -- is about Eric. Eric's rampage is itself a love letter written in blood to his dead fiance, and to their life together -- but ultimately it's a letter about his own pain, and his own loss.



At the same time, though, there are those touches of humanity -- not only in Eric, but even in the villains. While they have no real backstory (and again, who needs it?), those upon whom Eric is seeking revenge do often start to come to grips with their own evil. They never apologize for it, but they recognize it. They don't seek -- and Eric doesn't offer -- forgiveness; instead they respond either with rage and indignation or else quiet acceptance.



There are also small touches of realism in the story, which serve to make it that much more poignant. For me, it's often the little things which make or break a story, and O'Barr's attention to minor details really served the story here. One such detail was during the killing of Tom Tom. During the fight between Eric and Tom Tom, Eric used his sword to literally slice the feet out from under his enemy. As Eric gently grills him for information, Tom Tom looks over and says, "those are my boots," failing, in his shock, to realize that his feet are still in them. Minutes later, he asks Eric in an almost childlike way, "my feet are cold. Can I have my boots?" It's almost funny, and a lesser writer would have played the moment for laughs (and, I suppose, some readers will read it that way anyway). In O'Barr's hands, however, the moment is deadpanned and morose. It's not a joke at the villain's expense, but a simple fact of life: this is what shock is.



There are going to be readers who are rather hidebound, and will rail against the non-traditional story structure and the lack of character development for all but the main character. And even with Eric, those same readers will likely complain about the complete lack of character arc. But as I said up top, it's simply not that kind of story. Eric is dead. And, as he explains more than once, those who killed Shelly are also dead already. The story isn't about those characters... it's about Eric's loss, and what he does about it. If he makes a friend or two along the way, those brief glimpses, too, are not about those characters, but about Eric.

The Detroit of "The Crow" is a wasteland of crime and corruption. Ultimately, Eric's rampage isn't going to change anything for anyone. He's not setting out to be a superhero and rid the city of the festering rot that clings to its very soul. He's not going to make Cpt. Hook's life easier, or get Albrect a promotion. If later glimpses into her life tell us anything, not even Sherri -- the one living person with whom Eric has a nonviolent, semi-personal relationship -- will have her life dramatically improved by his brief entry into it. This is why, I believe, these other characters aren't more fully developed: they are more landscape than they are actual characters. They don't change Eric and, ultimately, he has little impact on them. It's both a realistic choice on the part of O'Barr and non-realistic. Sometimes, we change peoples' lives; sometimes we do not. O'Barr's depiction here is bleak, but not without accuracy.

Don't look for a pleasing conclusion here; for answers on life and death. That's not what "The Crow" is. Instead, "The Crow" is a brooding rumination on loss, and on pain, and on love.

View all my reviews

Excuses

There's a lot I'd like to be doing right now. Not now now, but at this stage in my life now.  Exercise more, pray more, read my Bible more often, get more writing done, do more work on my magazines, get more work published, work more with our business, get my home office cleaned so I have room to actually DO a lot of this stuff....

But as much as I'd like to be doing right now, I have even more excuses for not doing it.  I'm busy.  The kids are loud.  I'm too tired.  I'm beset by constant interruptions.  There's no room.  It doesn't matter anyway.  I'll have more time, and more focus, when...

I even have excuses for my solutions.  I started getting up an hour earlier in order to put in a solid block of writing each day.  But, dangit, 3am is early.

But of course, each of these excuses boils down to a single, fundamental truth: I'm not really all that disciplined.  If you're familiar at all with me, or with this blog, you've probably noticed I tend to get easily distracted.

Of course, that's one of the reasons I started this blog -- as a way to both hold myself accountable for my goals and to give positive direction to my split attentions. 

And, of course, to help those who are in the same boat I am. 

So do I have a solution to my issues?  Some.  The fact is, while excuses are annoying, they are often valid.  There are, indeed, only 24 hours in a day, and I have to sleep during some of them.  During others I have to work.  I have responsibilities to my home and family.  These things are unchangeable.  What I can change, though, is what I do with the time I have available.  Am I reading to or playing with my kids, or playing Angry Birds?  Am I writing, or am I watching TV?  Am I spending time with God, or surfing the internet?

It's true that I don't have a lot of extra time available -- but I do have the choice about whether I use it wisely or continue to waste it.

Who did what to whom: a question of grammar



Who's on First, indeed!



I'm more and more convinced that educators, well-meaning though they may be, are doing a massive disservice to the English language.  This crime against grammar consists of a single word.  A word which, when used correctly, is merely a little boring; but when used incorrectly it grates on the ears (or your mind's ears) like the first round of American Idol.

There is the added irritation that, logically, you can't even lash out at the perpetrator of incorrect usage, because it simply isn't his or her fault.  Chances are very good that he or she was taught it incorrectly, or else not really taught it at all. 

The word in question: "whom."

How many times, while you were growing up, did you use the word "who" only to be curtly corrected with "whom?"  And of those times, how often was it really explained to you?  The problem is, as children we were made aware of the word's existence, but never taught how to correctly apply it. 

It's like the sea gull in Disney's "The Little Mermaid," WHO is aware of the existence of a fork (or, TO WHOM the existence of a fork is known), but, left to make his own assumptions, decides it is a hair care product.

The result of this semi-education seems to be that many intelligent people -- very many of WHOM are otherwise excellent writers and speakers -- wind up throwing "whom" around with nary a thought as to whether or not it actually belongs.  Usually, it doesn't.

So, for those underserved by their teachers, I have a very brief primer on the usage of "who" versus "whom."

Remember: Who did what to whom.

WHO failed in teaching us the proper use of "whom?"  Educators.
They failed WHOM?  All of us. 

Who is ACTIVE
Whom is PASSIVE

If it comes after a preposition (in, to, by, at, etc...), the word is "whom."
If it comes before a verb or verb phrase (including forms of the word "is"), the word is "who."

Who is it?  To whom am I speaking?

Grammar Girl puts it this way:

...you use whom when you are referring to the object of a sentence. Use who when you are referring to the subject of a sentence.

I highly recommend reading her whole piece as well, as she dives a bit deeper than I into the subject.

Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, pass this on to your friends.  Heck, copy it and paste it in an email.  I don't care.  But if I keep seeing people using "whom" incorrectly on facebook, I'm gonna snap.

It's a Beer!

I meant to post the other day, but it is indeed official: Houston, we have beer! 

Isn't it glorious?

After about an hour's worth of work (total) and several weeks of pacing around, I have unbottled a beautiful pale ale.  For a first effort, it's not bad, if I do say so myself.  To be sure, it wasn't a perfect brew: it may well have benefited from using purer water in the first steps, for example.  Bottles that were bottled earlier in the process are also a bit more carbonated than the first bottle (wondering if, perhaps, I should have leveled off those scoops of sugar before putting them in the bottles).  But the bitterness is about right and, though it sits a little heavy (I have yet to finish more than a single glass in a sitting), it is pleasantly flavored. 

Of course, little of that, except the mistakes, has much to do with me.  So far.

I mentioned in an earlier post that brewing and writing had similarities.  One such similarity is in learning the craft.  With the brewing, I'm learning first by using Mr. Beer's pre-packaged kits. The kits include everything you need to create the malt -- ultimately the heart and soul of your beer.  Once I've nailed down the basic processes, I'll start adding things to the malts to create flavors, and then, finally (hopefully), gain the confidence and understanding necessary to start from scratch and create brews completely my own.

Anyone who is writing with any success will immediately note the similarities.  You don't start out writing like Longfellow.  You learn the basics: syntax, word usage, grammar.  Then you begin to sprinkle your own personality in as you learn and, ultimately, you're building your very own stories. 

Actually, anything worth doing in life tends to work the exact same way.  Impatience can be its own kind of instructor, but you skip the learning at your peril.

Hi, I'm Randy, and I read Stephen King

Pulp Fiction? At over 1100 pages?

It's weird, but whenever I tell somebody I'm reading a Stephen King novel, I always sort of feel like I need to apologize.  As though "Carrie" or "It" or "The Stand" were somehow beneath me as a reader, and that I should be aspiring for more.  

I think college is partially to blame, along with some kind of innate snobbishness on my own part.  I can't really remember where I got it, but somewhere along the way, I picked up the impression that King was for "them."  The unintellectual masses.  The proletariat.  And that, somehow, that was a bad thing.

But you know, there's a lot to be said for an author as prolific as King is, who delivers a new Best Seller time after time after time.  Maybe there's something to this "writing for the masses" thing, after all.

The fact is, Stephen King manages to to entice his "Constant Reader" time and time again because, frankly, he knows him so darn well.  He knows what his reader hates and fears; what turns him on and makes him mad.  He knows how to get under the reader's skin, to try on his bones and take his flesh for a ride.  I think King appeals to so many people because he not only writes situations that excite them, but fills his worlds with people they know.

I heard a critic say once that Stephen King writes like a layman -- as if that were a negative.  Actually, he doesn't.  King's work is deeply evocative and interesting.  He weaves multiple layers of realism, fantasy and menace, developing rich back stories for each of his characters.  He doesn't write like an every day guy, but he writes about them, and does it well.  King's characters aren't Shakespearesque archetypes.  They shave, scratch, fart and cuss -- and darned if they don't just make the stories that much richer and more harrowing because of it.

I know what people say I should like.  That there are award-winners and people on Oprah's list, and required reading in the Great Halls Of Learning.  But the truth is, I read Stephen King because I like his stories.  He doesn't bore me.  And more than that, because King writes his characters -- and their stories -- in a way to which many writers could only aspire.