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IF YOU COULD COMMISSION ANY LIVING WRITER TO WRITE A BOOK…

I’ve been asked where I get ideas for my daily blog. My better posts come from wandering after a train of thought intersecting my day. Some days I rely on prompts.

Keep conversations going and creative juices flowing!

Today a question leaped off the page at me continuing the train of thought for where ideas come from. I immediately had an answer that sparked music and daydreams woven with memories.

Stephen King! In school I obsessively read his books to drown out droning textbooks. His books strayed far from my day-to-day experience and blew the walls off of my imagination leaving me to wander through dark, scary gardens, creepy neighbors’ homes, even the degenerating mind of a rabid dog. I’d never read a book so frightening that I couldn’t finish until The Shining. I was its prisoner. While it panicked me, it hurt more to stop reading it!

I admit that I am not caught up on his works because in the role of fearless head of my family, I can’t be cowering in the corners under covers. Instead, I bought his book On Writing so I could sit a while longer with Mr. King’s genius. I’ve got a few books on writing but his was the first book from an author whose characters I was on first-name basis with. I loved following his train of thought and the realistic perspective he shared.

I would commission him to help me rewrite my horror film screenplay, “Mother’s Day.” I’d been curious about moms like Wanda Holloway who hired a hit man to kill the mother of her daughter’s cheerleading rival hoping the distress would cause the rival to drop from competition. I asked, “How far a mother’s love goes to ensure the success of her child?” Even more, “what if” the opposition came from within their family? I killed off the necessary players but wanted to spend more time with the psychology of the sub-plots.

Sadly, I checked his website, he doesn’t collaborate or even read and comment on manuscripts due to fear (Stephen King afraid?!) of plagiarism lawsuits. So with his books for inspiration and for pacing the story, I’ll give it another go on my own knowing Stephen has my back.

Photo borrowed from www.stephenking.com (C) Stephen King

“I get my ideas from everywhere. But what all of my ideas boil down to is seeing maybe one thing, but in a lot of cases it’s seeing two things and having them come together in some new and interesting way, and then adding the question ‘What if?’ ‘What if’ is always the key question.” –Stephen King

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8 Comments

  1. He is such a great writer for sure! I love his books and then Dean R Koontz is second in the row and after that Robin Cook. 🙂
    Great post! 🙂
    *hugs*

      1. I’m not sure… I couldn’t decide between Eric van Lustbader and Clive Cussler… but that’s probably only because I’m a little “bananas” anyway. *chuckle*

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