I Have Powers --King, Ellison, Fagen, and Voice of the Unknown

I’ve been listening to books on Audible lately. I just finished listening to How to Be Like Walt Disney, which focuses on all the good traits to follow (but omits less beneficial ones like “smoke three packs of cigarettes a day”). Prior to that interesting and occasionally inspiring book, it had been a succession of music biographies read by the musician who wrote them: Kim’ Gordon’s Girl in a Band, Bob Mould’s See a Little Light, Paul Stanley’s Face the Music: A Life Exposed.. I’d forgotten to download next up in my queue, Donald Fagen’s Eminent Hipsters, and had such a long ride ahead of me I did something I’d never done before—pull up at a Dunkin Donuts for free Wi-Fi rather than a coffee.

Twenty seconds later, I had my book. I’d read a couple years ago and liked it enough that I thought the experience of hearing Fagen read it might bring it alive in other ways, and thus far my preconceived notion has proven true. The book mixes memoir and insightful cultural commentary and achieves the affect of being at once intensely personal and wide ranging. Unlike the bands the three artists I’ve mentioned above spent much of their careers in (Sonic Youth, Husker Du, and Kiss), of whom I’ve absorbed a great deal of information about and have been listening to for over thirty years (and have the entire catalogs of), I know next to nothing about Fagen or Steely Dan and have only been listening to for about five years (and yet I still somehow have the entire catalog, band and solo. Sigh). I’d heard some songs prior, of course—and hated them. Steely Dan would be a mainstay of the AM radio my mother listened to in the car, and often their hit songs would creep into the playlists of the Hartford and New Haven-based rock stations I’d listen to in my formative years. “Reeling in the Years” couldn’t hope to have the same visceral impact as “Something I Learned Today” on the fifteen-year-old Reagan-era me. Somewhere in adulthood, though, the sound, sensibility, and vibe of Steely Dan’s music “clicked” with me, as did later-in-life enthusiasms like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and jazz. Steely Dan’s records often hit the turntable in my house now, and two years ago I bought Fagen’s Cheap Xmas career retrospective boxset, one of my favorite things to listen to in a hotel room when I’m far from home.

Several of the essays in Eminent Hipsters touch on radio personalities Fagen listened to as a kid growing up in New Jersey; the title song of his first solo album The Nightfly is a portrait of a late night DJ in that mold, and Fagen—who I have since learned is reclusive and has suffered stage fright!—appears on the cover as the titular character, one of the few times he appears on any front-cover artwork. After listening to the first half of the Audible, I go home and put Cheap Xmas on, and as usual when absorbing the work of an artist I’m not familiar with, I seek a more immersive experience through secondary sources. Google, in this case, and I’m soon clicking through Wikipedia pages on him, his band, and his albums—my first page is the one for The Nightfly. I went there first because I wanted to know what the first track of the album, “I.G.Y.”, stood for—for whatever reason, my mind plugged “I Get You” into the acronym for the first two or three times I listened to it, so I’m pleasantly surprised to discover it stands for “International Geophysical Year”, which Wikipedia later tells me is the period between July 1957 to Christmas 1958, and was an international scientific project in which 67 countries participated in. Despite being a student and aficionado, or so I thought, of fifties culture and fifties astro-culture especially, I’m embarrassed to admit I’d never heard of the IGY before—both Sputnik 1 and Explorer 1 were IGY projects. My appreciation of Fagen increased, my overall knowledge and worldliness increased, and I was flush with the joys of new discovery. Reading a little further on The Nightfly, I saw that the song “Green Flower Street” is a nod to the jazz standard “On Green Dolphin Street”. I tripped on that fact, slightly, if only because I didn’t recognize “On Green Dolphin Street” as being a jazz standard. I figured I’d probably heard it at some point, but the melody didn’t spring to mind.

Speaking of mind-springs, here’s where I’m going to veer way off the narrative road I’ve established and drop some thought you might find so off-putting that you avert your eyes, close this blog, and never return. I wouldn’t blame you; I’d probably feel the exact same way if a voice I’d hear previously as being relatively sane suddenly flies off into crazyville and wants to take me with it. But here goes!

I believe I have psychic powers.

Specifically, I believe I have not only a mild precognitive ability, but that I also can subtly influence the outcome of the future events.

Still with me? Here’s the problem—this ability—at least how I perceive it—isn’t something I can turn on or off; it isn’t a “wild talent” like in a classic Stephen King novel or comic book. I don’t think it had anything to do with the onset of puberty, an excess of hormones, stress, or altered states of consciousness. It isn't psychometry, but it isn't fully random either. It must be triggered. I think I’ve identified the trigger, partially, at least. Basically, if I see or hear a word or a phrase that was previously unknown to me in completely different contexts twice within a span of a few days, I can anticipate a “precognitive event” before long. It has to be the same word or phrase, and it has to be in completely different contexts. So reading “I.G.Y.” and then “International Geophysical Event” in the same essay would not trigger anything, nor would reading “International Geophysical Event” three times in the same article. There are probably some other stipulations about the context and the word or phase itself that I haven't figured out; I don’t believe the first couple times I heard a word like “chipotle” did anything for me.

Additionally, I'm not predicting major world events. I've yet to be able to steer people away from calamity; I'm not like Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone seeing apocalyptic scenarios caused by a  future President (at least not with my psychic abilities). The future events I "see"--if that is what I'm doing--are only very personal glimpses into my own future. 

Make sense? No, I don’t think so either. And I've read those wonderful books on cognitive biases You Are Not So Smart and You Are Now Less Dumb by David McRaney, and what I'm describing exhibits several of the biases and fallacies he describes so beautifully. But... reality is just a construct anyway, man, and we all employ different architects. On the average, I have zero to one of these events ("delusions", if it makes you feel better) a year—I have had maybe fifteen my whole life. On at least three of those occasions, I believe my having seen the future event allowed me to influence its outcome. 

So why mention this now, when we were having such a nice conversation about Donald Fagen’s work? I happened to be listening to The Nightfly through headphones while reading the Wikipedia article, and when I was done I set my tablet aside a picked up a book I had bought last month at NECon, Stalking the Nightmare by Harlan Ellison. I was thrilled to discover that the introduction was written by Stephen King; the book was published in 1982 (same year as The Nightfly was released!!!), and while I love just about all things King, I especially love his 80’s writing—that’s when he began warping my mind in earnest—and so finding a fragment new to me was a thrilling surprise.

But then on page nine I read this:

Weirdness #1

So, I figure after reading that I’m quite likely going to have a precognitive event. And yes, all the while I’m thinking—maybe I’m just ignorant, and everyone in my age bracket knows what the International Geophysical Year was, or I’m a dullard who has been exposed to the concept dozens of times before but never let it sink in through that thick skull to penetrate my brain-mud. Whatever. I keep reading, because Ellison’s own forward is up next, and I enjoy his biographical material as much if not more than his fiction.

And another nine pages later I read this:

Weirdness #2

It is interesting, for the moment, just to imagine the probabilities and synchronicities needing to happen to create these supposed conditions for precognition. Skeptic at heart, and in my head, I consider the vast amounts of culture I consume and how that influences the odds of me running into previously unknown words or phrases on a regular basis. But when I add the timeline elements into the mix in this specific incidence—what weird confluence caused me to pick that particular book (and it was off the NECon 5 bucks a bag table, which was like a rugby scrum with competitive consumers), but then even weirder to not read or even open it until the very same day I listen to The Nightfly, and then read those passages within moments of first discovering them on Wikipedia? And by the way, Stalking the Nightmare will be the 100^th book I’ve read this year (unless I finish listening to Eminent Hipsters first; I count Audibles). I’m not positive, but I don’t think any of those ninety-nine books prior mention the International Geophysical Event, nor do I think I’ve heard it in any of the songs I’ve listened to or the movies or television I’ve watched (although full disclosure—the Eric Dolphy recording of “On Green Dolphin Street” exists in my music database after all, nestled among another 79, 751 tracks). 

Maybe it isn’t so strange after all; 1982 would have been the 25^th anniversary of the IGY; maybe there were celebrations, news magazine profiles, articles galore, and maybe at 13 I was too ignorant to have noticed any of them. But maybe that anniversary somehow inflamed and inspired both Fagen and King, or both King and Ellison had heard the Fagen album, had discussed it even, and so the ghost of influence was transferred to their individual work on Stalking the Nightmare.

Who knows? And, more importantly, who other than me cares?

That’s it, end of story. For today. I figure I’m moments away from launching into some Nostradamus-level future-gazing. I’m feeling the urge to write up a few quatrains, actually. If you see me post about fleeing the country, avoiding certain brands of snack foods, or investing heavily in coastal real estate, you might want to act accordingly.

* * * * *

Postscript #1 Interesting that another essay in Eminent Hipsters contains commentary on Philip K. Dick, L. Ron Hubbard, John W. Campbell, and A.E. Van Vogt, writers who may have harbored para-psychological ideas at least as crackpot as my own. They were all featured extensively in the seventh book I read this year, Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee, a history of the Golden Age of science fiction. Once that synapse fired, I figured I might have read about the International Geophysical Year within the pages of that book—that crew was all writing then and certainly would have been interested. A quick flip through the index yields International Astronomical Union, but no IGY. Curiouser and curiouser.

One of the characters in these books also claims to possess telepathetic powers. If my own story didn't scare you away--or even if it did--you might enjoy them. They can be found HERE

But Does it Spark Joy?

My Esteemed Uncle Ron and I make a pilgrimage every January to The Book Barn for opening day of their annual sale, arriving prior to the store's (there are four of them, spread along Main Street) opening. We've been making this trek for at least a decade, with only one exception (a few years ago I went alone; it wasn't nearly as fun without him). I've been a customer of the Book Barn for at least thirty years, and I wouldn't doubt if I've transacted a thousand books over that span, mostly buying, but sometimes trading for credit books I never connected with or no longer connect with. The place is an OOP (that's "out of print" for those who don't know) paradise, but also manages to get a fair amount of current stock despite many of the chain bookstores (some of which I managed years ago) having long since gone out of business. My Esteemed Uncle Ron was a professor of Humanities for many years and regularly publishes scholarly articles, books, and books in translation, primarily in Medieval topics. We have almost zero overlap in tastes (some crossover in history and what I call "drinking studies") and so he's a perfect partner to go book hunting with as I never have to wrestle him over a find.

We met at the appointed place at 8:30 and I drove the short distance to the store, splitting the quartet of donuts he brought from a local bakery on the way and discussing the weather--this was the first excursion in recent memory where the weather was both sunny and fairly warm; we usually count on the arctic weather (last year the temperature was in the single digits which was great for keeping the amateurs away). We arrived ten minutes early, and decided to vary our pattern a bit--usually we start at the Downtown location; this year we started at Midtown because that location is closing and being moved, so instead of the usual 30% off, the stock there was 50% off so the hard working crew will have less to move.

Danny's Pro Tip: Nothing removes unsightly sticker gunk like GOO GONE. And with such a delightful orangey smell!

Here's what I bought;

(Above) A whole lot of James Ellroy, who I've decided will be one of my Featured Authors for the year, meaning I will try and read their entire output. (2018 featured Patrick O'Brian, Stephen Greenleaf, and John Connolly). I found thirteen of his books, most of them in the Midtown location, and most of them with beautiful retro noir covers. Sharp eyes will notice I bought one title twice; not an accident, I found a copy with a cover I liked better at the Main Barn later in the day. Those with my sickness will understand. Since Ellroy was one of two authors I was specifically targeting (the other was Brian Lumley because I had a synaptic urge to reread his Necroscope series, which I've not done since high school, but no luck there--I usually get a dozen horror titles, but that genre was a bust for me this year!) I was especially happy to find a signed edition of his biographical work My Dark Places.

I centered on Ellroy because I recently re-watched L.A. Confidential, at least I started to until I saw that disgraced actor Kevin Spacey was in it, whereupon I ripped it out of the DVD player, snapped it in half and then in quarters before setting it on fire and melting it into a toxic puddle (all lies; I watched the whole thing; it's a great movie and he's great in it). I've read a few here and there in the past but never in order, with concentration. I'm looking forward to it.

BTW, I'm often asked by people, some who are intent to crush out joy, and some who are merely curious, if I, as a professional author who derives a percentage of his livelihood from book sales, if I don't feel a little conflicted buying books used so that the author doesn't make a cent from them. The answer? YES. (Mr. Ellroy would agree--check out his quote about Granny and L.A. Confidential in his Wikipedia entry HERE More regarding this guilt a little later.

I love fantasy and science fiction art books, especially from the seventies and eighties, especially ones with accompanying text and/or artists notes. Anything where the artist reveals a bit of their process or inspiration. One of my book dreams in that someone collects and publishes a book compiling my friend Jill Bauman's art, some of which was featured in Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks From Hell, but I'd love to see a nice coffee table hardback of her work. The books above all all paperbacks, but some good finds--the issue of Ariel that I was missing, which has a gorgeous Barry Windsor Smith cover and something called Amberstar written and illustrated by Bruce Jones, who was responsible for the Pacific/Eclipse comics Twisted Tales and Alien Worlds among others, but for those in particular he will remain a must-read for me. These plus A Cadillacs and Dinosaurs collection, a Sandman volume (Gaiman wrote the book, he writes the introduction on the Bryan Talbot art book)  with a Stephen King intro, and a volume of Warren Ellis's The Authority I haven't read.

Then for miscellaneous stuff, these:

I think I've read the Saunders before, but this is a nice clean copy and I don't think I own it, the new book of Franzen essays, Patton Oswalt's Zombie Spaceship Wasteland because I enjoyed Silver Screen Fiend, his recent standup, and the new MST3k. The Carver bio because I've read everything he's ever written (even the poetry, which is a stretch for me) and if I could just glean one technique or practice of his through his life it would be worthwhile, the Doo Wop book because I love Doo Wop music and style and the book is loaded with photos and illustrations, and the Megan Abbot book because I loved the cover and setting (I will read any Hollywood noir) and because it seems that I've been hearing her work being recommended often lately--I've never read any. Only when I got it home did I realize it has an Ellroy quote on the cover. The two in the top corner are off my daughter's college reading list, and the last one is called Cheap Hotels and is probably the one I am most eager to read. I don't know anything about it, but it is a memoir/book of photos by Daisann McLane, a NYT travel columnist, who went around the world staying at budget hotels and taking photos and writing about them. I fully expect it will be one of my favorite books by the time I'm done

I also bought one book for my Esteem Uncle, just because of the cover quote:

He laughed when I gave it to him and said he's pretty sure he read it in the early sixties.

I do think it is funny that my total for the day was 32 books, two over Marie Kondo's much-reviled recommendation of 30, once again placing me firmly outside the zeitgeist (although my clutter-count is actually 29; two are for my daughter and Don Camillo and His Flock went with my uncle. Then again, Ms. Kondo was not speaking to me, specifically, and the vast amount of umbrage directed her way was maybe a little misguided. I found this article which I think does a better job of giving perspective on Marie Kondo's target audience and intent. She isn't a monster by any stretch of the imagination; she's trying to help people who need it, not those of us who are fortunate not to require that sort of help, and shouldn't be vilified for her attempts.

Back to feeling guilty about buying used books--I have complex feelings about the issue. When I was younger, there's no way I could have afforded the volume of books I read without libraries, used book stores, and yard sales. And without that volume of reading, I wouldn't be a pro--I'm in total agreement with Stephen King's quote about not being able to be a writer unless you are a reader. Now, though, I can afford a fair amount of new books and don't have to rely on the vagaries of the second hand bins to keep feeding my cortex. So why, if I can afford it, and not buying the books new is essentially robbing the author, do I still buy used books.

Because it, to me, is fun. It sparks joy, which is what Marie Kondo was really trying to stress.

I consider the "vagaries of the second hand bin" as much of a way for the universe to speak to me as the books themselves are; the greatest finds are those that send me pursuing the author's other work.  I truly hope that reading Abbot's The Song is You and McLane's Cheap Hotels sends me on a quest to buy their backlists and to eagerly await their next works. Most of my favorite authors, the ones who I buy every new hardcover they release, came from a library or used bookstore discover. Of the authors and artists mentioned above, I can confidently say that Ellroy, Windsor Smith, Jones, Ellis, Gaiman, King, Carver, Saunders, Oswalt, and Schultz have all made money off me, as have Moorcock, Niven, and Zelazny, who have stories in Ariel. These thoughts assuage my guilt.

To assuage it further, I confess I saw three hardcover copies of my first novel Generation Dead for sale there, but not, strangely, any of my other books. You should not feel guilty at all about purchasing one, I would certainly not think any less of you. I would instead be hopeful  that in the mystical conversation that you and I and the universe have during your reading of the book you would then fing the impetus to seek out--and pay full price for, dammit!--my other books, which you can find HERE.

I really do love the smell of Goo Gone.

Books I Read in 2018

I read one hundred and sixty three books in 2018. I'm not saying this to impress anyone, as though the ability to sit for long hours and read should be considered an accomplishment. If anything, the sheer volume of my 2018 reading should be an alarming statistic to anyone who knows me, because it is clear evidence of all the things I wasn't doing. I typically read around a hundred books a year (I count graphic novels and the fantasy & SF art books I collect, and I also give myself credit for books I toss after fifty pages, like I did eight times in 2018), and so to hit a "personal best" in quantity is really just an indicator that I was either dealing with Oumuamua (see my year-end blog post) or engaging in aggressive avoidance strategies. An article from April of this year suggests the average American reads 12 books a year, so I did the work for another twelve people. Your welcome.

I read a number of series detective novels, which I love, and they go down easy enough that I could sometimes read two a day. I read the entire Stephen Greenleaf Marshall Tanner series, a bunch of Donald Westlake novels, and about half of the K.C. Constantine Mario Balzic novels, a few of the John Connolly Charlie Parker books, and two Doc Savage novels. I read the entire Patrick O'Brian Aubrey & Maturin series over the summer, mostly floating in my pool, which I think is twenty novels and one that he died before he could complete.

In July I went to NECon, and came home with a massive book haul, most of which I read before the leaves even started to turn. A whole bunch of Ramsey Campbell, a couple from Michael McDowell, three or four Dean Koontz books from the eighties, Clive Barker's first and third of the Books of Blood. At NECon I donated to and won an auction to benefit Trans Helpline, and the prize was a nice collection of fifteen or so screenwriting books, most of which I read over the September and October, and promptly got to work on my first screenplay in November.

I didn't read many books by friends and acquaintances this year, shockingly, but all of those I read were stellar (thank Cthulhu). Michael Rowe's Wild Fell, Gemma Files' We Will All Go Down Together, (I buy many Chizine books; I also read David Nickle's Volk but we've never met), Laird Barron's The Croning, and John McIlveen's Hannahwhere, all excellent people I've met at NECon. I also read Joe Hill's The Fireman last year and I went to a NECon he attended but I was too shy to introduce myself. I read three of his dad's books this year--Creepshow, Carrie, and Elevation, but I've never been in the same room as him. I did trade a couple emails with Owen once, though. I read two of Kim Newman's books, and those always are among my reading highlights of the year, and I read Patrick McGrath's fantastic new book The Wardrobe Mistress.

I read less science fiction this year than usual--one each from Thomas Disch (who, like McGrath, I met when I was at UConn), Doris Piserchia, Roger Zelazny, Bruce Sterling, and Norman Spinrad. I reread Patricia Geary's Strange Toys, and a couple of those really thin old Richard Matheson short story collections. 

I read some nonfiction as well, some business books, Philip Pullman's--scratch that, Sir Philip Pullman's--excellent essay collection Daemon Voices, What Makes a Masterpiece, a couple books on true hauntings and urban legends, Beyond the Map, and all the aforementioned screenwriting books. 

The last book I read last year was John Hodgman's Vacationland which was the funniest book I read last year.

The most affecting work I read last year was the one whose photo I posted above, Book of Souls by Jack Ketchum, who died in January of this year and who I was very fortunate to have known by his real name, Dallas Mayr, having met him at a Borderlands Bootcamp and also having been able to spend time with him at various NECons. I'd read much of Jack's fiction, but had somehow missed this short collection of his personal essays, which I bought and read the week he died. He was a generous, gracious man and I will miss him.

If you've never read Dallas's work before--and shame on you--read Book of Souls and then read The Girl Next Door back to back, and please send me the selfie of your head exploding.

Generation Dead Book 4: My Best Friends Are Dead

Table of Contents:

The collected My So-Called Undeath blog

Stitches:

1. How's Life

2. Doll Parts

3. My Dead Heart

4. Purpose Statement

New Generation Dead stories:

1. Still Small Voices

2. Melon Heads

3. The Pain of Being Alive

Bonus new Break My Heart 1,000 Times story:

1. Passing Swiftly

On sale soon.  This will be the first time that any of this material has appeared in physical print.

I am debating including a brief author's note. I always loved when Stephen King kicked off his short story collections with his own introductions. He'd act as his own Crypt Keeper, at times curating, cuing, teasing, and carnival barking not only the work itself but also the process of creating the work. And, often, the impact that the work had on the community at large. It was an essay and not an introduction, but seek out his "Ever Et Raw Meat? and Other Weird Questions" for a great example. I used to dream about receiving correspondence similar to what he mentions in the article, although I no longer et meat, raw or otherwise.

I was always fascinated by how well those intros and essays effectively conveyed the unique experience of being a professional writer while also revealing a complete understanding of what it meant to be a "constant reader", and so the idea of trying something similar is appealing.

Then again, I always hated when just about anyone else tried the same stunt so we'll see.

Advertisements for Self, Others

Today's GD inspired art is from Ryan Robbins, who tells me that he did this piece in anticipation of Comic Con in New York City. I had the pleasure of meeting Ryan at a World Fantasy Convention many many months ago. Not only is he great company, but he's a fantastic artist as well. Many thanks to Ryan for letting me put this piece up at the site.

Kiss of Life is available for preorder at generous discounted rates at fine online retailers everywhere, most of which now have the cover art up (how I wish they could put up the full wraparound covers; that would probably double sales in a heartbeat). Most often the book is listed as being by "Dan Waters", so you may have to hunt around a little to find it.

If you are on Facebook and want to be friends I can be found Here. Also, if you would like to join a Facebook fan site for Generation Dead, we'd love for you to join Here.

I just finished reading Stephen King's new book of short stories,
Just After Sunset, which I loved. I've been reading King since I could read and his collections never fail to disappoint. Be warned; despite the title and color scheme, the book is not part of the Twilight series.

Under the Influence Part III

After reading Night Shift by the dim porch light at the lakeside cabin in Maine, I went on a King-frenzy, reading all that had been released up to that point. The Shining, Carrie, and The Stand were my favorites from that period of his work, but probably the book that had the greatest impact on me as a writer was his nonfiction homage to the horror genre, Danse Macabre, wherein he relates his thoughts about the societal impact of horror (and perhaps more importantly to me, on horror), spicing the analysis with plenty of great King-ian anecdotes concerning his childhood, dealings with fans, the business, or other writers. In the last section of the book he discusses modern horror literature, and the books and authors he wrote about were ones I read eagerly.

Stephen King is one of the main reasons I wanted to be a writer, and I think it has a lot to do with me discovering him when I was so young. In much the same way that Mr. King and many of the horror writers of his generation claim that E.C. comics and Ray Bradbury inspired them to pick up pen and paper, I believe that many people of my own generation--if they are being honest--would point at Mr. King and credit him for similar inspiration.

And, callow youth that I was, I must admit that it wasn't just King's writing that attracted me--it was also his celebrity. More accurately, it was what I perceived his celebrity to be. I remember seeing him in his cameo in his movie Creepshow and thinking that, in addition to earning his living by the pen (and what a living it must be!), he was also doing it entirely on his own terms. The avuncular (albeit creepy-uncle avuncular) come-along-with-me style in which he wrote the forwards to his own material made him seem to be another presence in the room once I started reading the stories themselves; I could picture him (always the hulking, bearded guy of the early book jacket photos) wringing his hands, looking on with feverish glee and waiting to see my reaction as I read the next page. So on one hand I thought he was a writer who worked on whatever the hell he wanted, openly contemptuous of certain editors, critics, and armchair psychoanalysts, but on the other he seemed to me to be a writer who had a real fondness and respect for his readers. This rather unique duality in his work and persona was something something I would think about as I developed my own ideas of the writer/reader contract.

From King, I read just about every modern horror novel I could get my hands on for the next few years. And as this was during the 80's, I had an endless supply to choose from, and I read many that were great, and many that were not great but I still managed to enjoy, and I read many, many that were not great and not enjoyable, either. And when these began to outnumber the good ones, in my mind, at least I started reading...other things.

The summer before college I read a number of books, outside of what is typically classified as "genre" fiction, that began to affect my life dramatically. I was writing daily by graduation, with two novels, a few notebooks full of short stories, and a pile of rejection letters, mostly from indie comic companies, to my credit. I knew what I wanted to do with my life before I even set foot in a college classroom.

And it was around this time that I read what, for me, was the most terrifying passage I'd ever read in a book, for worse than any of the fiction King or his contemporaries had written.

It was in a book written by Dan Simmons, I writer who I began reading around that time and have never stopped reading, one whose books I scarf up as soon as they hit the stores. In this book, Mr. Simmons wrote about his "discovery" by Harlan Ellison at a writing workshop he was attending (or possibly it was Harlan's version of the same story; I think both authors have written about their fateful meeting).

Apparently, before Mr. Simmons was up to have his work critiqued, an elderly gentleman had his story read, and was told by Mr. Ellison that his time would be better spent pursuing an endeavor that he had a greater aptitude for. I remember reading that there were those who "mistake a love of reading for a talent for writing."

Ouch. Those words haunt me every day I sit down at the keyboard.

My reading wasn't all horror stories, though in the early going the horror stories were what I emulated. Late in high school and on into college I started reading more widely and fell in love with a number of authors and books that would influence my work heavily. I'll write about some of them in a later blog.