(This ExcitingWriting Advisory includes my review of Stephen King's On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft, Pocket Books, New York, 2000.)
On the second day of the DFW Writer's Conference last June I was late for lunch, which triggered within me a writer-identity crisis of galactic proportions.
The planners of the conference, no doubt trying to promote interesting lunchtime conversations, had designated various tables by literary genres. But as I looked around at the nearly five hundred people eating lunch while I stood holding my tray in my hands… As my head twisted to the right and then to the left (if I were a horror writer a la The Exorcist, my head might have rotated entirely around), it dawned on me that the only empty seats were at the paranormal table.
The literary fiction table (my preference) was filled. So were the western table, the historic fiction table, the sci-fi table, the fantasy table, the horror table and the romance table. Even the religious fiction table had no room (at the inn.) There were plenty of undesignated tables, too, but not one had an empty chair.
If I were a sci-fi writer, I might have received a telepathic message from a distant black hole telling me I was about to sit down at (gulp!) the paranormal table.
I'm not a sci-fi writer. There was no telepathic message. My tray was getting heavy. My lunch was getting cold. I had to sit down somewhere. And the paranormal table had openings. Just sit down over there and stop making a big fuss, I told myself.
But you don't understand, I argued back (with myself). For my whole life, I have only identified with one genre: Literary fiction. I never chose it because I had fantasies about it being superior. I knew it was superior. Regardless there were no openings at the literary fiction table.
Dejected, finding myself in the throws of a profound literary crisis, I began my long walk toward the paranormal table.
The people already sitting there seemed normal enough. Actually, they seemed very nice. Maybe that was the point: Maybe they traveled on light waves to this conference directly from an alien planet where they were given earthling clothes from T.J.Maxx designed to make me think they were nice people.
Finally, I just admitted it: I was weird-ed out by the notion of sitting at the paranormal table, not even knowing what paranormal literature was. In the spirit of the genre, I decided that I should feel paranormal as I sit down to eat my lunch with these nice, normal people.
Perhaps I could choose to believe that they are perfectly normal (like me) but that they simply choose to write about paranormal phenomenon. And like a Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, I may not be able to put into words exactly what paranormal is, but I sure as hell know paranormal when I see it. I just hoped none of my literary fiction friends were watching as I placed my tray in front of one of the empty chairs at the paranormal table.
''Hi. My name is Charles. Do y'all write paranormal.'' That was my brilliant opening line as I sat down. A number of them, in the middle of chewing on their food, simply nodded.
One of them twitched her nose and said, ''Well, sometimes I write erotic fantasy.''
''No kidding,'' I said. Suddenly things were looking up.
Despite all my trepidation, I had a marvelous time exploring the ins and outs of paranormal literature. One writer told me she enjoyed creating a world that varied from our known world in only one or two ways. She enjoyed controlling that world. She gave me a way to understand the delicate intertwining between paranormal and fantasy.
I found myself telling everyone that currently I was writing a novel entitled, Charging the Jaguar in which, I, too, am playing with a world where one or two things are slightly askew from the normal. Because my novel takes place in the late 1960s in Colombia, South America, and because the principal character is a Peace Corps Volunteer who's high on dope most of the time, and because all the other major characters are Colombian, some weird things do happen, and one could argue that my entire novel is a paranormal-historic-literary-fiction. I like to call it adventure-literary fiction, so, trust me, it's that, too. And here's what was really amazing to me: When I finished explaining all this, everybody at the paranormal yable seemed to grasp what I had said; they even seemed to take it in stride, which, as far as I was concerned, had to be the most paranormal moment in my life.
I had occasion to recall my lunch at the paranormal table as I was reading Stephen King's memoir On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft.
Here's a guy who grew up on pulp fiction, sci-fi, true detective and comic books and naturally wrote what he liked to read: High school horror, fantasy and paranormal. Stephen King certainly never felt inferior for having written his great novels; nor has he ever claimed to feel superior.
Stephen King, with his tremendous ability to tell a story as well as his relentless desire to find the perfect literary form to fit the story, has turned out exciting page-turners over his career spanning more than thirty years.
The story he tells in the first part of his book roped me in. His writing education covers the portion of his career when he was an unknown novelist, up until his first novel, Carrie, was published. He shows tremendous determination to write while teaching school. King's wife truly did fish pages of Carrie from the wastepaper basket in his writing room because Stephen had grown so discouraged with his writing, he had given up on himself. That's something of which I have first-hand knowledge. By the time Carrie was accepted for publication, his editor had to send Stephen a telegram because by then the author and his wife could not afford to pay for a telephone.
Because Stephen King approached the business of writing novels through time-honored genres such as horror and fantasy, but did it so much better than most journeymen working in the fieldhis work actually gained higher profile faster. And then of course, Hollywood came calling and his career soared into the stratosphere. Can you imagine if Stephen King was, like me, stuck at the literary fiction table? His career might never have taken flight.
I admire Stephen King's tenacity and courage tremendously: As successful and well known as he has become, he has never stopped taking chances in his writing.
I admire his resourcefulness, his ability to find a solution even while thoroughly stuck (while writing The Stand). He was only able to push through it by dint of will , by exerting brute force. He shows a tenacious will that finally caused him to break through and find a way to finish the novel in a satisfying way.
I admire him also for his habit of writing one thousand words every day. Following in his footsteps I will be writing my novel at the identical word-rate.
The most important thing I got from reading Stephen King's book? Because he's been having so much fun sitting at various tables (the horror table, the sci-fi table, the fantasy table, the paranormal table) his book has been to me an engraved invitation to try sitting at other tables other than my old standby.
Whisper a little prayer: Please, God, I'm happy to sit at any table you like, really I am, as long as I never have to sit at The Boring Table.
