June

The first day of June. Suddenly, the weather changed here in South Yorkshire. A period of several sunny, warm, blue sky days  has turned into a cooler more unsettled period with spits and spots of rain. 

Little Margot was poorly on Sunday with some undefined and no doubt temporary sickness. She was like a little ghost clinging to her mother, without her usual verve and curiosity. Consequently, she had the day off nursery school today and spent it with us. She was much perkier but still not quite herself.

At 1.30pm, I called in to see Richard and Jackie Hines. As usual, the conversation flowed like a mountain spring but after two hours I needed to make my apologies and get back to our house to give Shirley some relief from Margot-minding duties.

Like Phoebe before her, Margot likes to sit on my knee and watch "YouTube" videos. To tell you the truth, I am being driven mad by excessive exposure to "The Wheels On The Bus" and Mr Tumble is not far behind. Also like Phoebe, Margot can protest like a fury in Greco-Roman mythology when you try to tear  her away from the computer screen. Even when I think I have negotiated one final video, the protest will often continue unabated. I guess this kind of battle is not uncommon.

At five fifteen we took her home and she walked all the way with a stubborn stop at the garage on Huntingtower Road where she seemed mesmerised by the activity within.  However, she walked all the way home and refused to take me up on my kind offer of a "carry" part of the way.

A couple of weeks ago I spotted a book in a charity shop that I thought I might like. It's by the famous American horror writer - Stephen King - but not one of his novels. It's titled "On Writing" and it attempts to provide readers with some insights into King's processes, prejudices and rules of thumb.

I have only ever read one of his novels - "Misery" because I am not really into that particular genre but you have to pay some heed to a writer who has sold over four hundred million paperbacks - some of which have been translated into blockbusting films. By the way, I remember being impressed with "Misery" when I read it. The writing was not trashy - it had genuine merit and you felt you were under the spell of a master storyteller who was at ease with his craft. I think that that is why I was drawn to "On Writing".

Stephen King was born in 1947

The book is not mechanical - drily explaining writing  techniques. In fact it is rooted in biography as you listen to Stephen King's real voice exposed - not hidden within fiction. It's really him.

Becoming a bestselling writer was a difficult journey for him. There were hard times and many rejections but he stuck with it. With his wife Tabby's crucial support, he managed to complete "Carrie" in the early seventies and passed it to a literary agent called Bill who happened to believe that King really had something.

At that time the Kings lived in a small rented apartment in Maine with their two children and Stephen was still teaching high school. One afternoon the kitchen phone rang. 

It was Bill.

"Are you sitting down?"

"Do I need to?"

"You might," he said. "The paperback rights to 'Carrie' went to Signet Books for four hundred thousand dollars!"

"Did you say it went for forty thousand dollars?"

"Four hundred thousand dollars... Under the rules of the road" (meaning the contract I had signed) "Two hundred k of  it is yours. Congratulations Steve!"

At long last he had broken through and life would never be the same again.

I am only half way though "On Writing" but I have lapped it up. King's early circumstances were far from encouraging and his later dependence on alcohol and drugs did not help his cause. Reading this book inspired me to order one of his lesser-known novels  - "Lisey's Story" (2006). I picked this one because King himself named it when asked which novel he was most proud of writing.

No doubt later this summer I will review it here in "Yorkshire Pudding".