Why, Stevie, Why?

Miss Hisler, Stephen King's school principal and (perhaps) his first critic, said, "What I don’t understand, Stevie, is why you’d write junk like this in the first place."

My first experience with Stephen King wasn't writing – it was the movie Salem's Lot. Nothing – before or since – has terrified me quite so viscerally. It is the boogey-man of my generation, this movie. I watched it alone in my parent's bedroom, surrounded by every stuffed animal I owned. I sat there through all four hours of it, eyes fixed on the tiny black and white TV in the corner, protected only by pastel CareBears and litters of Pound Puppies. They were -- as expected -- useless. All it takes now is the memory of fingernails on window glass and my stomach juices congeal. I didn't sleep without nightmares for two weeks. My parents blamed Stevie.

He's continued to scare the bejesus out of me ever since. And now that I am daring to call myself a writer too, my respect for what he does with words has grown. He taps the deep primal, the dark vein. It's present in all of us, which means we guard it well, and yet we let him slip the needle in, over and over again, knowing it's coming -- the sharp prick, the bloodletting. I still bare my jugular for him, but not because I have a taste for being tasted by monsters. Not anymore. I have different appetites now.

In a 1993 essay, King wrote: “The question which haunts and nags and won’t completely let go is this one: Who am I when I write?” That's why I read him now, with incantations on my lips that maybe he'll find the answer, and that if I keep the faith and keep reading -- words like tea leaves -- I'll discover how he did it. And then maybe -- maybe -- I can see the answer for myself, blooming there in the bottom of my own cup.