0.5 - 'Jumper' and 'Rush Call' (both 1959) and 16. The Horror Market Writer and the Ten Bears: A True Story (1973).

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I thought I'd take a brief moment to comment on these three little snippets from my recently arrived hardback, Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing. The first two I mentioned in my first story post; they are where I suppose I should have started - King's first published works. The second is an interesting little essay about how to get your work published as an aspiring horror writer, and the 'ten bears' you can use to play upon the fears of the reader.

Jumper and Rush Call

 Oh, so cute! Baby King could write, alright. He was just twelve when he wrote these two stories and put them in his brother's self-published newsletter called Dave's Rag.

 The first of the two is a story about a psychiatrist trying desperately to convince his patient to come off the ledge he claims he is about to jump from. Little King has great fun toying with the reader - will he jump? Will he be pushed? The second story is about a close-to-retirement doctor who makes a successful 'rush call' to a car crash and must operate on a young boy trapped inside the vehicle. It's incredibly short, very well written for a twelve-year-old (or a sixteen-year-old, for that matter) and has a much mushier ending than I'm used to from King. Hearing even a pint-sized King talk about the spirit of Christmas tickled me. The bleakness of Carrie and It seem a long way off.

Even at this age you can hear King's voice; young and inexperienced, yes, but King nevertheless. As an English teacher, I can say with some certainty that if one of my year eights showed me stories like these, I would predict big things ahead. The potential is obvious in King's use of language, his understanding of narrative, his playing around with serialisation (Jumper was published across three separate issues of Dave's Rag).

 Cute, cute, cute!

 The Horror Market Writer and the Ten Bears: A True Story

 This short essay is interesting partly because it was written pre-Carrie, and therefore pre-big break. It's a good demonstration of how much work King had actually produced and had published before he hit the big time, and a lesson for anyone wanting to make it big that a lot of luck is involved along with the necessary skill and talent.

King gives us a lot of totally out of date advice, but some of it still stands. The 'bears', for example, are a simplified list of the common fears held by most people, which he then uses in reference to successful writers and their works. I couldn't quite work out what my own personal 'bear ' - a screaming phobia of bats - would come under. Creepy crawly things? Fear of the dark? I don't know many daytime bats.

The main reason I'd give anyone for reading this essay is that it made me want to write. It made me realise that King took his time getting where he was, and had to work incredibly hard for a long time before he found success. His words in this piece show a love for his craft that goes beyond money making, and this is a valuable lesson. If you're writing for the money alone, you shouldn't be doing it. Perhaps if you're writing for the money at all. When I read this, I sensed that King would have been happy staying at exactly the position he was in then. That's pretty admirable.

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