On Stephen King and Whistling and Writing

I should not read Stephen King.  Not when I'm attempting to write. 

I bought his newest collection of stories, Full Dark, No Stars, the other day and I've already read it through. If nothing else, Stephen King knows how to tell a story.  I am pulled so easily, (so willingly?) into his tales.

And I am envious of the -apparent- ease with which he does this to me. He makes it look so easy, like whistling.  You know how to whistle don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow and out comes the story. After I've read just a few pages of his books, I want to burn everything I've ever written. 

And I know, of course, that even for the master of the popular novel writing is not simply a matter of whistling down the words, but involves hard work - maybe not the manual labor of blue collars and calloused hands - but real work none the less.  The ease is only apparent. Because he is good at what he does, he makes it look easy.

I've been asked several times in the past 11 days what my NaNoWriMo novel is about.  And my answer so far as been, "about 18, 5000 words..." (or whatever my current word count happened to be at the time.)  I've not even told my wife.  I'm afraid that if I do I'll loose the story, that I'll have "wasted" my words explaining the story instead of using them to tell the story. 

So, if you've been one to ask me about my story and I've dismissed your question with a bit of a joke, I apologize.  It's not you. Its' me.   

Now I'm going to quit wasting my time and my words in writing about writing and I'm going to go back to writing ...