{"id":3632,"date":"2005-09-21T10:04:19","date_gmt":"2005-09-21T14:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3632"},"modified":"2022-10-09T19:46:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T23:46:30","slug":"happy-birthday-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3632","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday, Stephen King"},"content":{"rendered":"

His book On Writing<\/a>\"\"<\/i> is, hands down, the best book “on writing” I’ve read. And I’ve read a ton. Marvelous. I just admire him so much. His work ethic, his imagination, and also – his facility with language, which I think is highly under-rated. It’s so typical – that genre writers are somehow seen as “lesser”, or not serious literature. It’s such a load of crap. Genre writers (good ones, anyway) are masters of their craft. They’re amazing.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, It\/a>\"\"<\/i> is a masterpiece. It’s one of my favorite books of all time. And – I can’t even say why. The last paragraph is one of those sweepingly sad paragraphs – it fills my heart with nostalgia, longing, sadness, yearning … The plot of the book is a bunch of kids who have to confront a monster who lives in storm drains. That’s the plot. But that’s not what the book is about. It’s about friendship, and love, and human connection in the face of catastrophe … it’s redemptive. It is an awesome awesome book.<\/p>\n

My other favorite of his is The Stand<\/a>\"\"<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Here’s an anecdote:<\/p>\n

When I moved to the apartment I live in now, I was moving from a 5th floor walkup. Ouch. I hired movers. These three guys were unbelievable. Just monsters. Hauling my bed, my dresser, my bookcases – down 5 flights of stairs. And then, of course, there were my boxes of books. I had, probably, 20 boxes. 20 boxes of books. The guys looked at the stack of books with palpable despair on their faces. Nothing heavier than a box of books. So off they went, my friendly He-man action figures, carrying boxes down stairs, climbing back up, another box down, climbing back up … I was openly apologetic about my own obsessiveness. “I am so sorry about how many books I have …” I said at one point, as this big bulky red-headed dude with tattooes, hauled another box of books up onto his shoulder. His reply was, with a little puff of breath beforehand, “There BETTER be some Stephen King books in here.”<\/p>\n

hahahahaha Like, if he was hauling poetry around, he would have been pissed. But Stephen King? That would be worth 20 trips up and down 5 flights.<\/p>\n

Beautiful.<\/p>\n

Other favorites? King fans out there?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His book On Writing is, hands down, the best book “on writing” I’ve read. And I’ve read a ton. Marvelous. I just admire him so much. His work ethic, his imagination, and also – his facility with language, which I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,9],"tags":[263],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3632"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178688,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632\/revisions\/178688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}