Picture: Annie is very glad to find a Stephen King book with a monkey on the front..
I want to share a little bit about this blog. I've tried hard not to make this about me. I don't blog about my wife and kids, my church, my studies and so on. This isn't about my personal life.
. June 14, 2009 I decided to do something I had not previously thought of -- I started a Stephen King blog.
.It was spontaneous. I had not been mulling it over. It was a Saturday night, and I really needed to be in bed since I'm a pastor and the next day I was scheduled to be preaching about three times. But, I was messing around with blogger and kept glancing up at my bookshelf. I also was remembering a news story from way back; a story about King going into a bookstore and being mistaken for a book thief. I wanted to find that story and keep it somewhere. The idea of a blog came to me as a personal way of keeping up with news stories I like, thoughts about King, and creating a listing of my own favorite Stephen King websites so I could find them again easily. Once I started formatting and writing, I was up until about 2 a.m.
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For the first year my goal was pretty simple: Build content. No one wants to go to a blog that has zero posts!
.Why I blog about Stephen King:
.1. It's An Outlet.
.I found blogging an effective outlet for my quiet Stephen King fandom. After all, most of the people in my world could really care less about Stephen King; or they flat out misunderstand King. As a pastor I couldn't announce from the pulpit, "I just read the most awesome Stephen King book! Superly cool, ya'all!" Though, I did once preach a sermon titled, "Better Than The Green Mile."
.As a teenager, my parents endured my interest. They were just glad I was reading. However, it was not something I could talk much about since they were into Star Trek. With college and work and marriage and a young family, Stephen King disappeared from my life almost all together. I even gave away most of the books I'd amassed (except my hardcover of The Stand.)
.Then I read a book titled The Stephen King Universe and I was inspired to check out the author who had so excited me as a teenager. My wife, ever patient, allowed me to begin hunting and purchasing first editions.
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As I rediscovered King, I have found an outlet for sharing the treasures I dig up.
.2. It gives purpose to digging deeper.
.There are already many Stephen King websites reporting news and staying on top of every recent turn. I really don't do that. When a cool news story pops up, I like to note it. But truth is, Lilja can't be beat in the news area. So I decided early that this blog wasn't going to be a primary news source.
.The blog allows me to discuss what I am currently reading or watching in the realm of Stephen King. To dig a little deeper and feel I'm digging with a purpose. To share with others cool things I find.
.3. It is a distraction.
.It gives me a project to focus on. Otherwise I would tend toward being a work-aholic. But it's fun to jump into the world of Stephen King, hunt for connections between books, read new articles and not think about the pressures of the day. In fact, the Stephen King Universe is so different from the world where I live, it is a true escape!
.4. It has introduced me to some new friends.
.A year ago I was just a guy with a bunch of Stephen King books, totally disconnected from the Stephen King community. However, since I began blogging, I've had the joy of meeting a lot of very sincere fans. From a kid in Brasil named Derick to one of my hero's, Lilja. (All of my "meetings" have been via email and the blog.) I also communicate with a friend in Canada and several others.
.You know, one of things I discovered was a lot of people who are very genuine, very kind, and very interested in a writer who has profoundly affected our world. Most of the King fans I've met are not teenage boys who just love a good horror story. They're more middle aged people who have taken time to make a serious commitment to this venture. Most King fans enjoy his work, but don't feel a need to try to acquire his personal items or get too close for comfort. Constant Readers are passionate, generally pretty polite, and almost universally saddened that King is so mislabeled/misunderstood by those around us.
.5. It's been a learning experience.
.I still know nothing about how websites work! But I have learned how to run a simple blog. Even how to try and outsmart some of bloggers little annoyances -- Like its tendency to insert huge spaces between paragraphs.
.After about ten months, I discovered that blogger has a spell checker! That had been driving me crazy, since I either had to type in another document and spell check or just look stupid. I still look stupid sometimes (my wife says I don't know how to use a comma) but at least I can spell stupid right. Bloggers spell checker says that I have Brasil spelled wrong, but Derick insists that in Brazil it's spelled Brasil. So there.
.I also learned to be careful not to leave readers hanging on an untruth. I posted once that I had discovered originals of some Stephen King manuscripts. A friend emailed me and said he would like to know more. Oops! I forgot to post that I was actually just trying to give a hook for Bev Vincent's very awesome The Stephen King Illustrated Companion; which did indeed include reproductions of original King manuscripts. You really should go buy it, okay! http://talkstephenking.blogspot.com/2009/11/find.html
.6. It pushes me to look deeper
.Blogging sometimes causes me to read a little further than I might on my own. often I will find a review, or a website, or even a book I might otherwise find interesting, but not invest the time in studying. After all, I tell myself, I am a busy guy. But, now I have the mental excuse, "I'm doing it so I can write about it." Rationally that's ridiculous!
.It has given me an interest in the state of Maine, and books about Maine. I loved a little book titled Strange Maine, which if not for the blog I would have had no knowledge of what-so-ever.
.I read a lot more books about King. have discovered good ones (Vincent, Collings, Jones and more) and several not so good (my mouth is sealed).
.On a final note:
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If There Was More Time. . . I'd start a Charles Dickens blog and a Twilight Zone blog. Dickens because I want to be pushed to know more than I do. I love his stories and know that blogging would cause me to nose dive into that other world. The Twilight Zone because it's just utterly cool.
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