Stephen King On Writing

Stephen King and his brother David are living in the lower middle class with their single mother Nellie Ruth. Money was a problem in King’s household. His mom working fulltime – had to hire a babysitter named Eula Beulah. Stephen King talks about how his fat babysitter prepared him for literary criticism after she would fart on his face. “I grew up as a part of America’s lower middle class” (King 188). “In many ways, Eula-Beulah prepared me for literary criticism. After having a two-hundred-pound babysitter fart on you face and yell pow! The village voice holds few terrors” (King 20).

Stephen Kings passion for writing becomes beneficial as he makes his first dollar off 4 stories he wrote. He tried to get as much exposure as possible by submitting his work to local newspapers and literary agents who “changed the lives of thousands of kids” (King 35). “Four stories. A quarter a piece. That was the first buck I made in this business” (king 29).

Without pain, there is no gain. King’s literature was rejected dozens of times. He had so many rejection slips that “the nail in {his} wall would no longer support them” (King 41). “My mother knew I wanted to be a writer (with all those rejection slips hanging from the spike on my bedroom wall, how could she not?)” (King 67).

With all the turn backs that Stephen received, his brother Dave to do something for him. Dave wanted to put Stephens passion to effective use, so he created his own newspaper. This gave King the opportunity to publish his own literature, along with some sibling bonding time. “He solved the problem, at least temporarily, by creating a newspaper which he called Dave’s Rag” (King 47).

King – now in college – goes for a degree in teaching as a plan B. He then meets his wife Tabitha. They have 3 kids. His first novel Carrie was where his career started, almost throwing it out; giving up. His wife told him to take it out of the trash, to revise it, and give it another go for the publisher to see. “And whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, there’s someone who knows. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference” (King 74).

King and his brother Dave sat beside their mother’s deathbed, talking and giving her a cigarette. She was buried right outside the church she attended. King does not take his mother’s death with ease. “We could hear the pause after each rasping breath she drew growing longer and longer. Finally, there were no more breathes and it was all pause” (King 95).

After the death of King’s mother, he becomes devastated. He doesn’t know how to deal with grief; he begins to drown his sorrows in alcohol. The day of her funeral he found himself trying to give the Eulogy, drunk. “I gave the eulogy. I think I did a pretty good job, considering how drunk I was” (King 94).

The death of King’s mother brought depression, and an addiction. King was now drinking on a daily. This brought problems to the king family. His wife was fed up with his drinking, but she couldn’t control him. It got the point where he needed alcohol to write. “One Thursday night I went out there to toss in a few dead soldiers and saw that this container, which had been empty on Monday night, was now almost full. And I was the only one in the house who drank Miller Lite – holy shit, I’m an alcoholic” (King 95).

At this point, King drank to function normally. His whole family was upset, but mainly his wife. He realized of who he has become after an intervention his wife setup. Her “this is your life in hell” philosophies woke him up (King 97). After this he chose his wife and kids over writing, thus also ending his drug addiction. “I wouldn’t be able to work anymore if I quit drinking and drugging, But I decided I would trade writing for staying married and watching the kids grow up” (King 98).

Up in the beautiful hills of Maine – in King’s summerhouse – he decides to take a walk down the left shoulder of a road, against the traffic. As Stephen made his way up the hill, he was hit by blue van. This left in unconscious, he was unable to write. “That was something I found out in the summer of 1999, when a man driving a blue van almost killed me” (King 249).