Stephen King

I admit it. I wouldn't necessarily claim that Stephen King is my favorite writer. So why was meeting him such a big deal for me? Here's the really long answer.

I started reading Stephen King somewhere around 2nd or 3rd grade. I was young. I am thirty-one years old. This means I've been reading him for over twenty years. That's certainly a big chunk of my life. I can't say for sure, but I believe Pet Sematary was the first novel of his I read. It's certainly the first one I can remember reading, but a bit more about that later.

There was a time when I would have said that Stephen King was my favorite writer. He's been in my life for so long so how could he not have been?

But what does it matter? So what if I've been reading him for over twenty years? That still doesn't explain why meeting him was a big deal.

Except that in those twenty plus years, Stephen King has been a big part of my life. His books have had an impact on me.

Here's something about me. I don't scary easily. Or basically at all. I have a ridiculous hiking phobia that destroyed my chances of being a volcanologist, but I'm a writer now so it's hard to be too upset about this. And I have an eye squick. In all fairness, this is a result of two eye surgeries in my right eye. They fucked me up mentally in a big way. So I admit to those. Movies don't scare me. TV shows don't scare me. Books don't scare me. I don't even so much as flinch in haunted houses. And don't we do these things for the pure joy of being scared silly? I know some people don't enjoy this (like my hubby), but plenty of us do. And there are plenty, who like me, don't scare easily. Or at all. I still enjoy the horror genre. I adore horror movies. Even the ridiculous ones. Which, let's face it, for me it's kind of all of them.

Now here's a story. One summer hubby and I were in Arizona for our anniversary. I have never seen or heard a coyote before. Hubby grew up on a farm. He has. On the way to the Grand Canyon, at WTF o'clock in the morning (for sunrise at Grand Canyon which is the best thing ever and I highly recommend) we came across some coyotes and started discussing them. Hubby told me what coyotes sounded like. A couple of nights later, we were at a bed and breakfast in Sedona. It was the middle of the night and I had just woken up. I heard something I never heard before. It took me a few moments to realize that it must be coyotes. Then I realized I had to pee. Then I realized that I couldn't go pee because there was a coyote in the bathroom.

Hah. Here's the irrational part of my brain completely freaking out while the rational part of my brain is telling me that I'm a fucking idiot because obviously there is no coyote in the bathroom. The rational part of my brain is also laughing at me. Finally, hubby wakes up. And that was all I needed for the rational part of my brain to win. He didn't have to get up. He didn't have to turn on any lights. He didn't have to check the bathroom.

And this story completely contradicts what I just said, does it not? Have you read Stephen King's Desperation? There are coyotes in it.

Remember when I said books don't scare me? I lied. Stephen King books scare me. Not all of them, obviously. And some of them don't necessarily scare me at the time, but they stay with me. I read Pet Sematary before bed and was afraid that there was something under my bed. I read Cujo, about seven to ten years ago, and had to turn all the lights on in my apartment. In the middle of the day.

I have an irrational fear of the supernatural. I'm not the only one. It's common enough. I used to think it was the result of years and years of horror books and movies. As I was preparing to meet Stephen King I realized that this wasn't the case. Any supernatural fear that I have can be traced back to a Stephen King book.

So no, books/movies/tv/haunted houses/etc don't scare me. Stephen King books scare me. And ridiculous things like coyotes yipping in the middle of the night scare me thanks to Stephen King. The fact that I can enjoy these ridiculous fears and being scared silly by a book is one of the main reasons that Stephen King means what he does to me. That is the easiest answer (even though it wasn't a very short explanation).

So on to actually meeting Stephen King. Tickets went on sale back in September. I immediately began freaking out and planning what I was going to say. Fast forward to November 15th. THE DAY. Only 400 tickets had been sold to this event. This event was only going to be a signing. That was fine. The point of this was for me to meet him. November 15th turned out to be what is considered really fucking cold in Austin. So BookPeople decided to be nice and not make us line up outside. So instead, they had to fit 400 people into their store. That was not fun. Thankfully Stephen King arrived early and since it was just a signing, we got started.

And the line moved fast. Really fast. I worried that I wouldn't be able to say exactly what I wanted to say. So I started working on getting everything I wanted to say out, but in a condensed version. I worried that I would be disappointed when this was something I had been looking forward to. The levels of freaking out until this point had been extreme, and included tears.

Thankfully, I was not freaking out as I neared Stephen King. I was excited. And I knew exactly how I wanted to condense what I needed to say. And then I got to Stephen King and it went something like this.

ME: I've been reading you since I was like eight years old and you are the only person who can scare me -
SK" *says something*
ME: - even though I love horror everything.
SK: *maybe says something else*
ME: Thanks for that!

Yes. Did you notice there are holes? Here are bits of conversation with hubby.

HUBBY: How was it?
ME: Fast. But worth it.

* a bit later*

ME: *freaking out*
ME: I managed to say everything I wanted to say even though I had to condense it but OMG I don't remember what he said. I know he sounded pleased but that's all I remember. I don't remember what Stephen King said to me but OMG he spoke words to me!
ME: *giggles*
ME: *immediately bursts into tears*

Those are happy tears, by the way. It was a very emotional day for me. I then spent a good part of the car ride home talking super fast because I just could not calm down. Now, I don't remember much of the conversation I had with hubby and I really don't have any idea what Stephen King said to me. I was so focused on what I needed to say to him and completely freaking out that I just didn't take it in. But he spoke words to me and they were pleased about the fact that he's the only one who can scare me. That I remember. And the part of my conversation with hubby that I do remember clearly is that I did say I didn't remember what Stephen King said to me but he spoke words to me and then I did immediately giggle and burst into tears. It did happen that way.

And that is my Stephen King story. Here's a blurry picture of him. It was the best I could do.

Stephen King

And while I'm at it, I also got to meet R.L. Stine on the 15th. He was a huge part of my youth.

R.L. Stine

And back in October I saw B.J. Novak again and also got to meet LeVar Burton. Here's them reading from their books.