Coffee with the King of Horror

Last night I had an unusual dream where I spent the day with Stephen King. While I don't remember a lot of it, there was one particularly vivid scene where I was interviewing him at a coffee shop. I had bought both our drinks and he slunk back in his seat. He seemed really comfortable, as if meeting up to mentor some random English major was akin to catching up with an old friend. I kept thinking Oh my gosh...this is Stephen King. I get to pick the brain of STEPHEN KING and he's just sitting there all casual as if he's not a big deal. How do people not recognize him? This guy's a celebrity. Play it cool, Shannon. Ask him what you really want to ask him. Just spill your guts, or you'll regret it forever. Here's our conversation, as I remember it:

"I'm an aspiring writer to an extent. Some of my fiction writing tends to get a little dark. I don't know why, but I find it easy to write about scary things. Murders, monsters, that sort of thing. A lot of it's probably inspired by your work, I'm sure. My family doesn't get it. They think it's gross and wrong, and that I need to read and write about brighter things. But when I try to do that, it's unnatural and cheesy. My gritty stuff is just so much better. I don't think I'm a bad person...it's not like I like that sort of thing. So why do I do it, I wonder? Why do you do it?"

"Well, just because you think something's intriguing, doesn't mean you agree with it. Bad people are facinating, and it's thrilling to be scared sometimes. I write about murderers all the time, but I'd never murder someone. I'm not sick at all; I'm a husband and a pretty good dad."

"You do seem like a good person."

"So do you. There's nothing wrong with us. We just have good imaginations."

"Did people ever make you feel like you were sick in the head for writing such gruesome stuff?"

"At first. Not everyone gets it, and that's okay. I did get a lot of flack for IT though."

"I have to confess I never read that one. I've actually only read like three or four of your books."

"It's okay. A lot of them are really similar to each other." (I thought it was hilarious that he admitted that)
"The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is really good."

"You liked that one? It didn't do as well as I had hoped."

"It stuck with me. There's something really terrifying and alluring about being lost in the woods all by yourself. It was very Grimms' Fairytale-esque. It made me want to write a story in the same kind of mood that that book put me in."

"You should do it. Even if no one ever reads it, you should do it for you."

And that's all I remember. I have no idea if that's what Stephen King is really like or not, but in this dream he was pretty cool. It was like God sent me a vision of someone I admire to encourage me in a way that I would respond to. Or maybe it was my brain telling me what I wanted to hear. Regardless, it's pretty amazing that I should have a dream like that the night before being offered a job at CSUS as a writing tutor. I have a feeling that 2015 is going to be a year full of more writing than ever before. Sometimes one needs an imaginary pep-talk from a famous author, I suppose.