The Stephen King Post

Photo of Stephen King's Home in Bangor, ME.

When I was one-and-a-half years old, my family had dinner with Stephen King.  The dinner happened at my grandparent's house in Eastport.  Eastport is a port city in Downeast Maine.  Though it is a port city, and has its own airport, the only reasonable way to access the city is by car.  In order to drive to Eastport, you have to drive through Pleasant Point.  Pleasant Point is a part of the Passamaquoddy reservation.  The most notable portion of this drive is a stretch of road with ocean on either side.

For reasons I'm not entirely certain, my father's side of the family was having dinner with Stephen King.  I know that my aunt was involved somehow in the reason behind this meal.  Stephen King is a wonderful philanthropist and my aunt worked for the harbor during this stretch of time.  I suspect it was a dinner following Stephen King doing one of his many charitable contributions to the State of Maine.  I don't know for certain.  What I do know is that the dinner took place at my grandparent's house.

For as long as I have known my grandmother, she has always had strange, people-hating cats.  At the time this story took place, her current cat had another particular trait; he loved to curl up in the backseat of parked cars.  You see, while Eastport is technically a city, it's only one in political structure.  The actual population of the city resembled the size of a small town under normal definitions.  There was little crime and everyone left car windows down and doors unlocked.

Stephen King came to dinner, met me and my family, and after socializing, climbed into his car to start the three hour drive drive home.  As the story goes, Stephen King driving through Pleasant Point  when my grandmother's cat, woke up, jumped into the front seat and raised a kind of hell only a person-hating cat could. The incident scared the crap out of Stephen King.  He somehow dealt with the cat, turned around, and drove all the way back to my grandparents house.  Once there, he somehow managed to wrangle the cat into his arms.  He carried it over to the front door and politely returned him to my grandparents.

The conclusion to this story came later when Stephen King's Cujo was published.  In the book, the five-year old Tad has a strikingly similar description to two-year old me.  Also the description of Donna was equally similar to my mother.  When Stephen King later published On Writing, he admitted that during this period of his life, he was in a dark place and doesn't remember where he got the idea from for this book.  In fact, he confesses only vaguely remembering writing parts of the book.  As far as I'm concerned, this cat incident was at least part of the inspiration behind his book, Cujo.  

Context in Stories

You may have noticed that I've been quiet. I even missed the last Whatever Wednesday.  My writing group, Social Writers Assistance Group, is doing a major writing event that is keeping me busy.  We are doign what we call SWAGNoWriMo. It is a variation of NaNoWriMo with two major differences. First, the month of February is picked because of the lack of major holidays involving family. It also is in the middle of winter when there are less events going on. The other difference is the goal system. SWAG unanimously agrees that the concept of completing a novel in a month is not appropriate goal settings. Each of us are setting our own personal goals based on our own expectations.

I will still be blogging. I have three movies to report so far, for February. I won't be getting to those until tomorrow at the earliest. I also need to stay on track of writing Whatever Wednesday posts.  These posts, while important, are not part of the point to this blog.  This blog is a place to discuss the craft of writing. Today, I'm going to talk about context of a scene.

Context is important. Take this photo of Risu. She is sitting on the floor, looking straight ahead towards the camera. Her expression is a strange one. The photo is provided with no context. Take a moment and think about this photo before reading on. What do you think is happening here? A photo without context is like a story without context. You can look at at it and analyze it, but you don't have a full understanding without the context.

With writing, a lack of context has some benefits to it, but only to a certain point. Many books open with the characters in the middle of the action. These stories start you without context. You may have a character running from something.  You don't know what this character is running from or why. As the story progresses, this event is put into context as more details are provided. This use of context helps build tension and captivate the reader.  Another technique with context is to only apply a part of the context to emphasize something specific.  In the movie Cloverfield, a giant monster is attacking the city. The creature is only partially exposed to the viewer and never, in the course of the film, do you learn why it is attacking, nor do you learn what this monster is. In the case of this story, the context of the monster is left mysterious so that the viewer focuses on the the real story, the characters trying to survive this horrific and mysterious event.

So, what is the context of the photo with Risu? I decided to lie down on the kitchen floor with the camera. Risu came over to me.  She was trying to figure out what I was doing on the floor when I snapped the photo. Now go back to that photo and take a look at it. Doesn't this make much more sense?  That is the importance of context.

Whatever Wednesday: Meet the Cats

For this installment of Whatever Wednesday, I'm going to introduce you to the cats in my world.  These cats are one of the most wonderful things in my life.  So, without further ado, here are my cats:

Hercules

Nicknames: Herc, Herkemer, Herky

Type: American Short-Hair

Age: 11 years

About Herc:

I have always had cats around me in my life.  Despite this, there has rarely been a cat that I brought into my life.  Hercules was the cat that changed that for me.  Alice and I got him together and he's been with us for almost the length of our entire marriage. We got him from a childhood neighbor of Alice's when Herc was only a year old. He has been there through the best and the worst parts of our life. By my count, Hercules has been with us through seven moves from one home to another. He hates moves and can tell if we are preparing for another.

Herc is about as laid back as a cat can get. He is friendly, affectionate, and has never used his claws on anyone on purpose. The only time someone was scratched by Herc was when he fell and was trying to catch himself. Herc is also one of the smartest cats I know. Alice has trained even him to do High Fives. If you hold you hand up in front of him, he'll smack it with his paw. It is super cute.

No matter how many, or what cats we've had in our house, Herc couldn't care less.  He doesn't get into fights and is very content with doing his own thing.  Unfortunately, Herc's idea of doing his own thing does involve getting onto the counters and eating fish, chicken, or any other food that was left unattended.  Outside of stealing food from the counters, Herc is a well behaved cat.  Lately, he has been coming around and telling us to go to bed.  Or at least that's what we think he is saying.  Did I mention he is a very, vocal kitty?  Yeah, Herc loves to communicate.

Writing Influence:

Hercules is the primary inspiration behind my short story Timid the Cat Goes to War. I returned to our home in Asheville, NC one afternoon to discover the screen knocked out. Risu hadn't gotten very far and was quickly recovered. Herc was missing. For over twenty-four hours, Alice and I did everything we could to try and find Herc. We were worried we had lost him for ever. This area, after all, had a tendency to eat cats. He returned the following day on his own with no explanation as to where he had been or what he had been up to. I decided after this moment to write a story explaining what exactly catsdo when they go missing.

In my novel, The Rose and the Crown, Vincent wakes up after having fallen asleep in a chair to discover that a cat has curled up on his lap. This was also inspired by Hercules and his behavior of curling up next to people sleeping in chairs as if it were a part of his daily routine.

Risu

Nicknames: Brat, Princess Prissy Pants

Type: Siberian (Believed to be purebred)

Age: 5 years

About Risu:

We did not pick Risu. Risu picked us. I woke up from an overnight shift and heard piteous mewing from bushes outside our apartment. The source of this crying was Risu. When I lowered myself down to the ground, she ran towards me and hoped up into my arms. I couldn't turn her away. We put signs up and, much to my eternal joy, no one claimed the fluff ball of happiness. We named her Risu, the Japanese word for squirrel.

Risu has a kitty crush on me. She wants everything in her life to do with me. If I lie down on the floor, she'll snuggle up next to me. If I sit on the futon, she will curl up beside me or behind me. At night, she climbs up next to me and gets under my right elbow, making reading difficult. She also is kind enough to inform me when the clock reads 5:00 AM. Why? I have no idea.

Risu also is obsessed with the sink. She'll run ahead of us in the hall if we are heading towards the bathroom and leap into the sink. Half of the time, she'll drink from the sink if we give her a chance. The other half, she looks at us like we are crazy.  Do believe me?  I offer you video proof.

Writing Influence:

I have a WIP titled, “Finnish Cat Story”. This story is about a young man, Eric, whose cat is accidentally stowed onto the wrong plane and is flown to Finland instead of Boston. Eric uproots his entire life and leaves for the strange country he knows nothing about to recover his cat. There, he spends a six month quarantine with his pet, eating into his life savings for this one cat. The cat in this story is directly influenced by Risu. I adore this cat so much, words can not describe it. She is a complete brat. She does hundreds of things that drive me crazy. And yet, I love her. It is also clear that she loves me very much and just wants to be close to me. I felt this kind of love deserved recognition in writing.