Overcoming Pennywise

This week I am reading Stephen King's On Writing.  I don't know why it has taken me 10 years to get to it.  I distinctly remember its publication and thinking I must read that.  But I never did.  That despite really enjoying King's body of work.  When I was younger I loved the way he just knew what creeped me out.  Like he had poked around in the collective and found out what we fear most and then housed those things in the innocuous guise of a clown, or a beloved pet or a nerd girl.  I still can't enjoy circus clowns because of Pennywise.  I was going to include a photo of him, but even those gave me the heebie jeebies.   So don't click on the link if you don't wanna see.

When I got older I recognized that King wrote brilliant dialogue.  I'm not talking content here, but structure and language.  Dialogue in one of his books sounded like the conversations I had with my friends, the ones I overheard on the bus, the ones shouted at 2AM by the drunk in my neighborhood and his wife.  There is just a truth to it.  

So I wonder why did it take me 10 years to get to this book?  I thought about that today as I was reading.  And it was like staring into the chalk white face of Pennywise himself.  Fear.  The kind that immobilizes you in place.  10 years ago it was - What if I discovered that I sucked by reading it?  Or that I was a lame ass hack when it came to writing?  What if people could see inside me when I wrote?  Oh God, what if they discovered how fucked up I am?  Mostly though, there was the thought that if I read this book, I would have to claim my writer's beanie once and for all.  

Those initial fears gave way to new ones as I dared to model my stylin' new writer's beanie in the mirror at last.  Would people think what I have to say unimportant or boring?  What if no one read my words?  What if my words were not appreciated much less understood?  I think King explains it best when he says without an audience "you are just a voice quacking in the void."   Oh God, don't let me be a quacker!

I think I was able to finally pick up the book and read it, because none of those things bother me anymore.  Or at least bother me much less.   I rock the beanie and I'm keepin it.   Nothing you say can make me take it off.  I no longer care if you think I am a total goober or a fucked up nutcase (both are true at times).  I don't care if no one reads.  I am not really writing for them.  I am writing for me.  Anything else is a bonus.

So, Quack Quack Pennywise.