Can A Writer Write Too Much?

What do readers want?  More books. What does Stephen King give us?  More books.  But not nearly fast enough, some of you would scream.

Here's a great essay by King Can A Novelist be Too Productive? that appeared as a NY Times opinion.

King not only looks at the volume of material some authors produce, but the gaps.  (I expected him to mention Harper Lee.)

A couple short notes:

Interesting, King discusses the relevance of  John D. MacDonald, a writer who praised King in his introduction to Night Shift. I'll never forget this idea: MacDonald suggested that King is a good writer because he's written piles of junk. (My summary.) But staying faithful to the craft made King a strong writer.

King mentions that he wrote Running Man in a week. And that he once published four novels in a year. Not a bad pace!


I love this:

As a young man, my head was like a crowded movie theater where someone has just yelled “Fire!” and everyone scrambles for the exits at once. I had a thousand ideas but only 10 fingers and one typewriter. There were days — I’m not kidding about this, or exaggerating — when I thought all the clamoring voices in my mind would drive me insane.

Seasons:

What's nice about a writer like King -- a writer who produces a lot -- is that I can look back at seasons in my life and remember what King book I was reading. I am particularly fond of Needful Things, Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne and The Wastelands because they came out around my senior year of High School and freshman year of college. This was the first time I found myself waiting for King to write another novel.

Before that, earlier in High School, I was just blown away by all the stuff he'd already written. It, The Stand and all those early novels just had to be read. But once I made it to my senior year, I'd read most of the "old" stuff. There were a few false starts -- Tommyknockers and Salems' Lot. I don't know why I couldn't do Salems' back then, but it was tough.

Does Maximum Overdrive Hold Up In 2014?

Well, there's not a lot to "hold up" when it comes to Maximum Overdrive.  The movie is campy fun; don't try to make it something more than that, okay?  Lots of things kill people in lots of ways.  It's not a political message or an attack on progress.

Dave Riedel at examiner.com recently reviewed the film.  I was interested to see what a 2014 review of the film would look like.  Riedel gave it 4 out of 5 stars.  His favorite line is "nicely done."  The acting is nicely done. The sets are nicely done.  I guess it's nice.

Riedel writes, "Overall Maximum Overdrive is a nicely done horror flick brought to you by the writer himself, Stephen King. The storyline is twisted as you would expect from King and translates to the screen pretty well. King fans, sci-fi, and horror fans will all likely enjoy this one."

Now rewind.  How was Maximum Overdrive seen in 1986?  Well, not nice.

Jon Pareles at nytimes.com was not quite so generous with King's directorial debut.  Here are some of my favorite lines:

• Mr. King's movie of his own screenplay takes place in Wilmington, N.C., a locale that allows him to indulge almost every dumb-redneck stereotype.
• the movie might be called ''Attack of the Killer Trucks''
• For the most part, he has taken a promising notion - our dependence on our machines - and turned it into one long car-crunch movie, wheezing from setups to crackups.

Check out  AMC's Christine v. Maximum Overdrive.  (amctv.com/movie-blog)

Of course -- I really like this review:

And, for another more current review, this is from October 2014:

UPDATED: Big Driver, Let The Whining Begin

Don't you love it when a new Stephen King project comes out, and everyone gets their chance to complain?  I'll post my thoughts on Big Driver in a couple days -- until then, here's a summery Sara Stewart's whining from nypost.com.  Her article is titled, "Stephen King’s ‘Big Driver’ stuck in neutral."

• Bello is an engaging presence, but she’s above this material. Ditto Ann Dowd. I can’t say as much for rocker Joan Jett, though it’s still a kick to see her brief appearance as a weathered barkeep with a glass eye.
• “Big Driver” can’t seem to decide if it’s a straight-up thriller or a dark comedy about what writing about murder for years does to a person’s brain.
• It’s a line King often walks with finesse in his stories, but doesn’t always survive the leap to the screen since he’s usually not writing the screenplay.

Stewart nails something that I mentioned when I first read the book; it's hard to believe Tess would respond the way she does to the scenario she's given.  Stewart writes:

There’s an essential implausibility to Tess’ reactions — and while it might, in a different genre, have been amusing to watch her developing an in-depth internal relationship with the voice in her GPS, the fact that it follows a traumatic rape feels way off, tonally.

I wrote in my journal entry about the NOVELLA:

 Tess' reasoning at several points still troubles me. Sorry to mention this. But I was not really convinced on her reason for not calling the police. And, her note to herself, "Don't get caught" . . . but she didn't really carry out much of a plan. She followed an emotion, but didn't execute a flawless play. Instead, she plans backward. that is, she carries out an idea, then figures out how to cover her tracks. 

While the story is dark, the ending is fantastic. King masterfully pulled the strands together. It is dark, but perhaps not as dark as some of the other novella's contained in FDNS.

By the way, I liked the Lifetime movie. More about that later.  What did y'all think?

UPDATED:
latimes.com Mary McNamara has her own share of whining, declaring that King "often" deals with the subject of rape in "long, graphically detailed and brutal scenes."  I wonder who she's been reading!

Check it out:
Carrie, no rape.
Christine, no rape.
Cujo, no rape.
The Shining, no rape.
Pet Sematary no rape.
The Green Mile, no rape.
. . . So what exactly is McNamara talking about?   Well, as is often true of the press these days, it's accusation an without any supporting evidence.

McNamara isn't done trashing King and Big Driver.  She writes, "If only it weren't such a disturbingly retro and sadistically sensationalized take on the subject. If only it were any good at all." And, "The story is simple, manipulative and ghastly." She goes on to say, "this story is so nonsensical that it, at best, exploits its subject matter and, at worst, insults it."  She calls Big Driver, "criminally limited material."  Criminally?  Now here's a reviewer who apparently just needs to just use words randomly without concern for their meaning. Big Driver has "CRIMINALLY limited material" ?

Know what the problem is -- McNamara, and many reviewers, are looking for King's "message" instead of looking for the STORY.  These reviewers aren't along for the ride, they're looking for a cause and a protest, and upset King did not set up a good rally for them.

NY Times Declares Decayed Vampire Horses Could Not Tear Them From Doctor Sleep!

Check out Margret Atwood's review of Doctor Sleep, "SHINE ON, Stephen King’s ‘Shining’ Sequel, ‘Doctor Sleep'" at www.nytimes.com

Atwood gives a fairly thorough walk through of Doctor Sleep's primary themes.  Yes, Dan still Shines.  He's not alone.  In fact, a child named Abra shines even better.  That's an amazing thought, if you remember how Danny almost knocked poor Dick right off his feet when he shined. Atwood also tells us that the bad guys in Doctor Sleep re  "rackety" group of entertainers clled True Knot.  They want to "drink her spiritual mist" or "steam."  If you remember the book, the Overlook didn't come out so well in The Shining.  Atwood tells us that the True Knotters have made the destroyed hotel their "min encampment."

Atwood energetically says:

Wild ectoplasmic partly decayed vampire horses would not tear from me the story of what happens next, but let me assure you King is a pro: by the end of this book your fingers will be mere stubs of their former selves, and you will be looking askance at the people in the supermarket line, because if they turn around they might have metallic eyes. King’s inventiveness and skill show no signs of slacking: “Doctor Sleep” has all the virtues of his best work.

She goes on to list those virtues.  Read the article HERE.

NY TIMES Discusses The KING Family

Check out Susan Dominus' lengthy article, Stephen King’s Family Business. (www.nytimes.com) There is actually more personal information in this article than in most of the Stephen King biographies I've read!  Which brings to mind, I am still waiting for George Beahm to update his wonderful biography of Stephen King, America's Best Loved Boogeyman.

Here's some bullet points:

• They do read Dean Koontz. Some like 'em -- some don't.  They also like Larry McMurtry, Wilbur Smith, Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, James Cain, John D. MacDonald, Neil Gaiman
• Stephen King bribed his kids to read books on tape for him.  Including some pretty nasty stuff, like Raven, which is about the Jonestown massacre.
• At bedtime, King's children were expected to tell their parents bedtime stories.  That's pretty cool!
• Stephen King used to win prizes in Sunday School for memorizing verses.  No one should be surprised by this; his writing shows a working knowledge of the Biblical narrative.
• They also took time to read after dinner books like The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia. 
• Joe Hill cannot stop working if a sentence ends on an odd count of letters.  (Who counts?)  Rather compulsive, he has been known to miss appointments because he keeps going home to make sure the oven is off.  I understand this!  I run back to make sure the door is locked, then think, "now, did I really check?"
• Naomi King wrote fantasy as a kid.
• I appreciated Tabby's point that her children should not sulk too much about the burden of being children of writers -- since everyone has parents they will be compared to in some way.
• As always, I love the love story between Steve and Tabby.  Not only how they were  young, in love and poor -- but how she was willing to confront his worst habits and demand the best in him. Dominus writes: Tabby explained to all of them that if their father did not agree to get sober, she would ask him to leave. “I didn’t want to lie to my kids,” she said. “I’ve never really gotten lying anyway, because all you do is postpone the day at which you’re revealed to be a liar.” As the family discussed the intervention all these years later, the conversation grew almost hushed. “It was terrifying,” Naomi said. “Are you going to have a dad anymore?”
• The critic they all fear is Tabby.  She got Joe to change the ending of one of his books!  (And remember, she's the reason Dreamcatcher isn't named Cancer.)
• Naomi King isn't really a fan of the horror genre -- she's a fan of theology.  Dominus quotes Naomi, "I do care about monsters — I care very much about theological interpretations of how we make friends with our monsters. If we demonize other people and create monsters out of each other and act monstrous — and we all have that capacity — then how do we not become monsters ourselves?”
• Joe is a positive guy. (read the article)

photo credit: nytimes.com

I found this just down right sweet, about Owen King's wife, Kelly, and the King's:

The relationship between Kelly and Stephen has the easy rapport of in-laws relieved to enjoy each other’s company, the conversation light, less likely to turn to the mysterious process of writing than to the end product — either someone else’s work or their own. The Kings’ embrace of her writing is clearly not a function of politeness; they seemed to be competing to outdo themselves in their praise of “Save Yourself” when the subject came up. 

The full article is at: www.nytimes.com