Stephen King's Birthday and What It Means to Siri

Today's Stephen King's birthday, and to celebrate I'm reading the latest issue of Cemetery Dance, which features Neil Gaiman's visit to SK's Florida home.  The article's floating around cyberspace, too, and most of it can be found on Neil Gaiman's blog.

I also spent the morning downloading iOS 6 to my phone. (I know, I know, I live a life of mystery and adventure.)  Of course, I had to play with the updated Siri, which, I should add, is a major improvement over the last version.

Curious, I wondered what Siri thought of Stephen King.

First I asked, Who is Stephen King?  Siri's response:

Damn.  The man's 65, a famous writer ... and a baseball player?  I would've suspected he'd play for Boston, but then again, what do I know?  Just to be sure I had the right King, though, I asked a more specific question:  Give me a list of books by Stephen King.  

Hmm, seems Mr. King forgot to leave me his phone number.  No problem.  I figured since Siri is now a movie buff, I'd ask it to give me a list of movies involving Stephen King.  Yes! I got some answers--well, a few at least.  For some reason, I'd thought there'd be more.

Finally, I asked Siri when Stephen King's birthday was, and it gave me a list of contacts to choose from, which, to protect the innocent, I shall not post.

Alas, Siri didn't seem to know Stephen King, and, in fact, isn't much of a book lover at all.  Hopefully it  won't dampen King's birthday any. I suspect it won't.

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25th Anniversary of Stephen King's IT

Following the announcement that Cemetery Dance is releasing three special editions of Stephen King's masterpiece IT this fall, their server went down.  The announcement was that big.

As you can imagine, I'm a huge fan of IT.  In fact, it is my favorite horror novel of all time.  So, yeah, you better believe I refreshed my screen about a thousand times until my order went through.  Good news is the server is back up at CD, for those who have been waiting patiently.

The 25th Anniversary Special Editions are full of extras, including an amazing wrap-around cover (above) by Glen Orbik, a brand new afterword by the author and nearly 30 pieces of artwork by Alan M. Clark and Erin Wells.

For more information, go to Cemetery Dance's Website.  And hurry.  I imagine this one's going to sell out faster than Pennywise can tear off poor little George Denbrough's arm.

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Some Stuff

I spent the past weekend in Manhattan, visiting family and enjoying the sights. I had the pleasure of taking my daughter to see Neil Gaiman perform with the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra. They did a rendition of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. It was a wonderful production, and my daughter and I enjoyed it very much.

After dropping the kiddies off, we headed over to Keat's on 2nd Ave for some cocktails and karaoke. If you missed my butchering of Empire State of Mind, then you missed a real treat. Oddly enough, I've frequented Keat's plenty of times, but this was the first time I realized that right next store is the steak house Palm Too. Haven't heard of it? It's the restaurant Stephen King refers to in On Writing when he discusses description. What a weird and smallish world.

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Happy 201st Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe. Some articles of interest regarding His birthday.

Nevermore? Mystery birthday visitor to Poe grave is no-show, breaking tradition

Poe and the Philadelphia Gothic: An Interview with Ed "Philly Poe Guy" Pettit

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Apocalypse Fiction

If you've been coming around here over the past--gasp!-- year, you've probably noticed some changes. For one, the layout is new and improved. For two, I've changed the name of the blog to Shades of Gray. While the site is still a work in progress, I think it's coming along swimmingly. So let me know what you think, Dear Reader.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I began a new story. This latest is a YA apocalyptic novel about a young group of people who are exiled from their village and journey to the far away land of New York City. I've been calling it Stand by Me meets The Road. So far I'm in about 50k words, and I have no idea where I'm going with it, but I'll save the post about creative wells for another day.

This story is a different direction for me, but one I've been tinkering with for some time. I've always wanted to write an apocalyptic novel, something as a homage to some of my favorite childhood apocalyptic novels like Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, Stephen King's The Stand and Robert McCammon's Swan Song.

But mostly I'm writing an apocalyptic novel because these authors seem to get on Oprah's book club. Just look at the success of Cormac McCarthy's brilliant novel The Road. I mean who cares that it won a Pulitzer Prize, it was featured on Oprah for Christ's sake!

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The Chronicles of Commuting

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, welcome once again to another installment of complete nonsense from your pal Robert Gray.

When I left for work this morning it was pouring rain and the wind was banging my little car around the road. By the time I got to work the sky was cloudless, the sun warm, and I was pretty sure at some point the storm had carried me away to an alternate world. Though I'm fairly certain that I didn't leave this world--I have yet to see any talking lions, munchkins, or gunslingers-- I'm still a bit suspicious....



In the next issue of Fangoria magazine, which will be available December 15, Stephen King talks about those things that scare him. A snippet of the article is available on Fangoria's website.

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Something else I saw at Fangoria, which should help you all get into the Holiday spirit, is the trailer for Silent Night, Zombie Night.



And finally, here's a treat for those who managed to make it to the end: a rare interview with Dean Koontz. You can click here to see the full interview with Dean Koontz from the Tavis Smiley show.


Later Fiends,

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Literary Travels

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, don't be afraid of the person with the bloody knife. Be afraid of the person who tries to save him.

So I was listening to On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King on my way to work this morning--next to Elements of Style this is my favorite audiobook to listen to when I've finished a novel towards the end of the week and I don't want to start a new one.

I was listening to the part where King discusses writing Misery. He mentions he began the story at the Brown's Hotel in London, a hotel Rudyard Kipling frequented. Kipling wrote part of The Jungle Book at the very same desk King began Misery, in fact. King, in his stylistically cryptic way, informed me that Kipling died at this desk. Doing a tiny bit of research, it appears not to be true, entirely. Kipling was taken to the hospital from the hotel. He died at the hospital. It is rumored, however, that Kipling's ghost still frequents the place, perhaps for the breakfast buffet ... who knows.

Brown's Hotel, I came to find out, is a literary hot spot, and I thought--wow!--how cool would it be to write at the same desk that King, Kipling, and perhaps dozens more penned some of their greatest works? This led me to a site called Literary Traveler. This site is dedicated to vacations that immerse the writer into the world of their literary heroes: Shakespeare, Dickens, Lovecraft, Poe.... I just thought I'd pass it along in case anyone needs a literary sabbatical.

Later Fiends,

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Lottery Tickets

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, rub thy magical blog to receive three wishes.

On good advice from the writer Steve Vernon, I try to think of my work as more of a lottery ticket than a piece of art. Thinking in those terms keeps disappointment to a minimum. Hey, you don't really expect to win the lottery, but if it happens ... So this week I sent out lottery tickets to some of the agents I met at the BEA Conference. All you need is a query and a dream, right?

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I'm a big fan of audio books. Because of my schedule and the amount of down time I spend in my car, I always keep my iPod loaded with books. The last few days I've been listening to On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. I've read the book a few times, but I just got around to listening to the audio version read by King himself. I imagine it's the closest I'll ever get to a personal lecture, and a lot of what King says makes sense. I enjoyed the section on what Hemingway referred to as killing your darlings, or rather cutting out those expository passages that act as a teat for your ego, but offer nothing to the story or the reader. Story always comes first. I also enjoyed when King discuses how writers should keep their desks in the corner of the room, not the center. This is to remind the author that life enhances writing, not the other way around.

The book / audio book is good, not perfect, but good. King uses a lot of filler, especially during the grammar sections where he quotes The Elements of Style way too liberally, and his admiration for such writers like John Grishim comes off like an infomercial. Still, the book is a helpful guide that all aspiring writers, not just fans, should read.

Later Fiends,

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Under the Talisman

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, the man in black fled across the desert, and we all followed ... ever since.

Yeah, that's right, dear reader, I'm talking about Stephen King. I remember hearing from time to time about this novel he was working on that was, alas, never to be completed, much the same way I thought the Dark Tower series would never be completed. I love being wrong (which is usually the case) and this is no exception.

Under the Dome, perhaps SK's longest novel ever, clocking in at a massive 1500 pages, will be released November 10, 2009. Let's just say I'll be picking up a copy.

Here's the plot synopsis:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

And though I'm not an avid comic reader, and I wasn't all that interested in Marvel's Dark Tower and The Stand adaptions, I recently learned that The Talisman, a collaboration between Stephen King and Peter Straub, will be released in graphical form through Del Ray and is due out in the Fall of '09.

I'll be wrapping my greedy fingers around that one, too.

Later Fiends,

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Attention Whores & Cyber-Minions

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, TGIF (Thank God I'm Famous).

I mean really, I even have a school named after me Robert Gray Elementary School. And, ooh, look, today they're serving cheeseburgers, crinkle cut fries, lunch bunch grapes, and milk ... yummy.

And because I am famous (refer to the above mentioned school if you need proof) and because I blog, I must be a whiny attention whore like Tess Gerritson and Patricia Cornwell, because they are famous too. Of course that would make every blogging author a whiny attention whore, right? Even the writer who wishes for a fan base like Gerritson and Cornwell, and who--huh?--uses a blog to attack someone about blogging? Once upon a time Plato denounced the art of writing in his writings Phaedrus and Seventh Letter. It was stupid then too.

But obviously the problem goes much deeper than the famous attention whores, but into the whores' underground subculture of cyber-minions known as the fan base. Those willing to go to war for their author no matter what the charge, be it a mail-slide against Stephen King for his attack on Stephanie Meyer, or worse.

So what does this mean for fresh writers like us--er--you? I for one think the blog has become essential to a new writers success, especially in the realm of YA and genre fiction. Attention whore, you're God Damn right, because this is free, and if one person sees this and becomes interested in something I create then it was worth it. Fans today are gained one by one, word by word. Perhaps that is why fans are so loyal to their authors. These fans weren't tricked by some solicitor trying to sell them a ShamWow! The authors had to feed their fans, nourishing them with insight and opinion, and at times personal notes that reflect on politics, religion, life, whatever. Is it always necessary? of course not. I don't care that Neil Gaiman cant find his tea. But some fans do.

Bottom line, dear reader, there is no problem with supply for writers anymore. The problem is in the demand. So whatever works. Blog, Tweet, scream, make smoke signals ... whatever.

Rant over.

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John Picacio is a phenominal artist. Tonight I will pray to the Publishing God (Loki I believe is His proper name) that Picacio will do my cover art.

Happy F13.

Later Fiends

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I'm in a Michael Chabon State of Mind

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, welcome to my cyber home, where the only pork projects here involve squealing, conveyor belts, dull blades and ... well, it's all very messy really.

Michael Chabon will be speaking at Lehigh University on Sunday, March 22. It's free and open to the public. If you're in the Northeast Pennsylvania area, and you've been dying to meet me, then, you know, he'll be there too. The information can be found here.

In anticipation I've been reading a collection of short stories edited by Chabon. And what an awesome collection of writers, from Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates to Peter Straub and Margaret Atwood.

Whether or not you appreciate Chabon's writing style, you should at least give the guy credit for bridging gaps between literary and genre fiction, and this collection is something of a testament to that ability, putting together genre and literary writers in one fantastic collection.

Another book I've been reading bit by bit is Chabon's nonfiction collection of essays Maps and Legends. Many of the essays were previously published, but as a collection and because of the gimmicky cover (which I am always a sucker to) I think it stands as a fine collection and brings a deeper, sometimes bitterly passionate understanding of why Chabon walks that line between literary and genre fiction.

Later Fiends

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