Stephen King, �Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing�
From what I can tell, this was a special book available to those who joined a special Stephen King book club, where you get crappy reprints with weak spines of King titles in the mail once a month.
Actually, I think that�s longer than it actually takes King to write a novel, so this is a good moneymaker.
But here�s what I�m wondering: If this is a special title only available to those who actually pay attention to late night commercials, and people decided they actually wanted to shell out whatever the cost is for these poorly made books, was it because they wanted to fill up a spare room with books? Or were they actually obsessive fans who never thought of picking up his books at a third of the price at a used store such as the one I work at?
Included in this members-only book are excerpts from Four Past Midnight, a rather lengthy piece from Danse Macabre and Night Shift. Also included are introductions that King wrote for other authors such as John Fowles and Jack Ketchum. Most of these pieces are easily found, and they even skipped a few that I�ve run across, such as forwards to Jim Thompson and Neil Gaiman.
If the answer to the question posted in the paragraph preceding the last is the correct one, then wouldn�t said fans get pissed that the special members-only book is actually collected reprints of things that he�s already written, most of which will be in other books that they�ll receive eventually?
My guess is probably not, as the average King reader is fairly retarded.
I don�t have room to talk shit, as I have quite a few King novels on my bookshelves. It started out simple enough � I had a hardback copy of The Stand in both versions, and the trade paperbacks from the first four books of The Dark Tower series, both of which I fully admit were great guilty pleasures. Then I got the job at the bookstore, and one day we downsized our horror collection, which meant purging the Stephen King hardbacks. Most of these were titles I had read from the library as a child between 14 and 16, but there were also novels I hadn�t read, several of which have appeared in reviews here.
The justification went two ways with taking these home for myself. I certainly didn�t want to purchase his books, but I figured it would be okay to see what I had missed out on for free. And as for the ones I had read, well, let�s just say I had a spare room that needed filling.
Besides, I�ve kept all the books that I�ve read from the last ten years or so. Not having the King novels representing felt like when I was 15 and just getting into punk, whereupon I purged my record collection, everything from The Police to the first five albums by Iron Maiden, so as to not be called some kind of poseur. I�ve since replaced The Police albums.
But obviously, if you�re collecting Stephen King in hardback, you do need a spare room, and I don�t have one. In fact, I am very close to being completely out of space in my small room. I downsized, replacing the hardbacks with paperbacks, which meant that the idea behind getting the books for free no longer applied.
And then in the meantime, I�m still slogging through these other books I picked up for free, though this one is the last King book on my shelf. That makes about 10 titles by him that I don�t have, by my estimation. I won�t be getting anymore soon, though I still want to get the last three books in The Dark Tower series. I�m just waiting for paperback.
So the best thing about this book is when King writes that he hates people who say, �I�m waiting for the paperback.�
As for the rest of the book, it was an exercise in frustration, as some of the pieces are not good and things I�ve read before. I read the afore mentioned piece from Danse Macabre when I was fifteen, after a long bit of confusion from the librarian who was helping me, as I was asking for a title that I thought was pronounced something like �Dan-cey Mac-Arb-Bray.�
I still fuck up when I say Hors D�oeuvres and hyperbole, by the way.
Anyhoo, I�m reading these pieces � again � and remembering how much they bored me as a kid, but I didn�t know any other authors to seek out. Now I have interests in other authors and genres, but my stubbornness forces me to keep reading, just as it did nearly two decades previous. And then I finally come across something I hadn�t read.
If I remember correctly, it was a piece on mail that he gets, a sort of �Kids Say the Craziest Things� segment and he�s trying to describe what his daily life and his quirks is like, and succeeding with all the subtlety of Vincent Price.
This piece isn�t terribly interesting either, but it gives me a subject to think about as my eyes went over the pages, and I start paying attention to my own quirks. Some of what I found follows.
- I drink coffee through a straw.
- My hand does an involuntary rise and fall with the crescendos of talented vocalists like Aretha Franklin and Etta James.
- I maintain eye contact to the point where it makes others nervous.
- I whistle along with music rather than butcher the songs by singing along, although my whistling skills could certainly count as butchering.
- I smoke in the shower.
- I will play drums on any surface, and it always sounds better than when I actually play drums.
- If I have a catch phrase, it seems to be, �Yes. Yes I am.� I say this most often after hearing a complement, which happens more often than you might think.
- When I sit down, I always manage to do so in a fashion that looks extremely uncomfortable.
- I have sound effects for everything to try and spice up the day-to-day monotony.
It�s a good thing I don�t write horror, as I�m far too gone in the land of dorksville. In fact, I�m such a dork that I�d probably get kicked out of the club.
