This post is about writer doubt. And Stephen King. Do those two things go together? If they don’t then Mickey is an awful writer and does not know how to do what he does. It would mean Mickey is icky.
I used to think Stephen King was a totally over-rated writer. Back in the early eighties I read Carrie, King’s first novel, and got halfway through Firestarter, and had to give up. Partly because the book was overdue at the library, and also because I found the books mechanical and somewhat joyless in the writing. I thought he suffered greatly in comparison to writers I was in love with at the time like Ray Bradbury and Thomas Mann. I began to tell others that King was somewhat icky.
But King was obviously also somewhat successful. He began to get his books made into movies and people who don’t read discovered the evil genius of a man who tells stories to scare them and laces them with a bit of real humanity, real human feeling, and love.
I saw it first in Stand by Me. That movie, starring young Wil Wheaton as the Steven King autobiographical character, really touched my heart and really made for me a deep psyche-to-psyche connection to somebody who wasn’t just a filmmaker, but somebody who was, at heart, a real human being, a real story-teller.
Now, the psyche I was connecting to may very well have been Rob Reiner, a gifted story-teller and film-maker. But it wasn’t the only King movie that reached me. The television mini-series made from It touched a lot more than just the fear centers of my brain as well. And people whose opinions I respect began telling me that the books The Dark Tower Trilogy and Misery were also amazing pieces of literature.
So I picked up a copy of Hearts in Atlantis at Half-Price Books and began reading a Stephen King novel for the first time since the 80’s. MY HOLY GOD! King is not a little bit icky. He is so NOT ICKY that it makes Mickey sicky to have ever thought King was even a little bit icky! Here is a writer who loves to write. He whirls through pages with the writer’s equivalent of ballet moves, pirouettes of prose, grand jetés of character building, and thematic arabesque penchées on every side of the stage. I love what I have discovered in a writer I thought was somewhat icky. Growth and power, passion and precision, a real love of both the words and the story. He may not know what he is doing. But I know. And I love it.
And so, while I have been editing the first novel I ever wrote, Superchicken, to make it ready for self-publishing, I have begun to ask myself the self-critical question, “Is Mickey really icky when he writes?” My first novel is full of winces and blunders and head-banging wonders that make me want to throw the whole thing out. But I can’t throw it out. It is the baby in the first bathwater that I ever drew from the tap. The answer to the questions of Micky ickiness have yet to be determined, and not by me. I guess I have to leave it up to you.
Catch a Falling Star 
The Final Day of March
I went for a walk in the park today, trying to get the three miles of walking in for the day to help strengthen my heart and blow the filth out of every valve and carburetor in the engine that makes my life run. But it was a gray and dreary day, threatening rain and being downright spitty.
I counted at least four male cardinals sitting high in the tops of mostly leafless trees. Each was surveying his own jealously-guarded territory and singing his little red heart out with the trills of his mating song. No female cardinal was out in the wet and the cold to answer any of them. It appears they were all sitting home in their bird houses sipping hot cocoa by the fireplace. And probably laughing at the stupid males.
March is supposed to be the tail end of Winter and the first bars played in the Song of Spring. It has been more like a skunk’s tail followed by the squawk of a dyspeptic crow.
The trees who lose their leaves are supposed to have buds by now. Even leaves. But that seems to be delayed for cold rain and the frustration of love songs by redbirds going unanswered.
And it reflects the end of the Covid Pandemic like a mirror. There are still masks on faces at Walmart. There are maskless faces as well. Inflation makes spring strawberries expensive. Gas prices made Spring Break travel limited. Donald Trump is still not in prison. And the best descriptive word for the feelings in the moment is, “Meh…”
Things should be looking up. Robins should be returning from their extended vacations in Cancun. The people in Texas should be smiling more. Especially the rich white people. The world is pretty good for them. But apparently we have a bit of hail, a lot of rain, and some killer tornadoes to get through before the season sets itself aright.
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