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LATEST NEWSLETTER Newsletter #1, April 2007 One of the more interesting things about being a writer is doing book tours and answering fan mail (most of it now in the form of email, thanks to the wonders of the internet). The two questions I’m always asked are "Where do you get your ideas?" and "Why do you writes these kinds of stories?" Other variations of the last question include "What happened during your childhood to make you want to write these kinds of books?" and "You seem like such a nice person. Why write stories that scare people to death?" What people are really asking me is "Seriously, what’s wrong with you?" Let's start with the first question: Where do I get my ideas? I haven’t got a damn clue. Ideas just happen. They pop into my head while doing exciting things like folding the laundry or brushing my teeth. That’s the honest to God. It’s a boring answer, yes, I know, and I’m sure more than one of you is saying right now "You’re telling me you get these sick, twisted stories while folding your socks? Thanks for nothing." Maybe I can answer this question by attempting to explain the second: Why do I enjoy writing thrillers? Back when I was in the fifth grade, Boston’s Channel 56 ran an extremely popular weekend movie program called Creature Double Feature. On Saturday afternoons, they’d run the Godzilla movies along with the real cheesy black and white horror flicks with titles like It Came . . . FROM THE SEA! A man in a rubber mask trying to act scary by making growling noises would chase some girl in a big puffy dress out of the 50s. I loved these movies, but the good ones, the real scary ones, weren’t shown until 11 on Saturday nights. Fortunately for me, Saturday night was date night for my parents, and I was left in the care of the cool grandmother, who would let me stay up and watch these really, really scary movies. It was during one of these Saturday nights when I saw a TV commercial for a movie called The Shining. I remember watching the elevator doors part open to a sea of blood, remembered seeing Jack Nicholson, axe in his hand, chasing his son through the hedge maze during a snowstorm. I had never been so scared in my entire life. Being 10 years old, I did what any natural child would do: I begged my parents to see it. I had a plan. When my parents came home that night, I waited until I could get my father alone—my father was parent you went to when you wanted something because my mother was suspicious of everything that came out of my mouth, especially anything fun—and asked him if he’d take me to see The Shining. "What’s it rated?" "R." "That means it only for adults." "It also means an adult can take someone under 17 to see it." I suspected my father had a couple of beers in him because he smiled. They were strict when it came to getting good grades, studying and working hard, but they were pretty liberal in the movie and book departments. "Tell you what," he said. "Your mother wants to see that movie. Next weekend we’ll check it out and get back to you." The following weekend, when I heard the front doors open, I ran upstairs to talk to my father. My mother moved in front of him and said, "There’s no way in hell you’re going to see that movie." I suspected that, so I did a little investigating and found out there was a book based on the movie. My friend’s mother had the book but hid her copy so my friend couldn’t get his hands on it. My friend told me the book was written by a man named Stephen King. I didn’t live near a bookstore, but the Lynn Public Library was close by, so I called ahead and asked if they had a copy. They did and agreed to hold it for me. I asked my father if I could read the book. My father had to think about it for a moment. See, we had a rather embarrassing incident over the summer, my father and I, when I got my hands on a book called Jaws (another movie he refused to let me see). I was reading the book and came across a word I didn’t recognize. The rule in the Mooney household was if you didn’t know a word, you had to look it up in the dictionary. The word wasn’t listed, so I went to my father. "Dad, I couldn’t find a word in the dictionary." "What’s the word?" "Humping," I said. "What’s it mean?" That book disappeared from my hands. My father gave in and took me to the library. He waited out in the car and I went in to check out the book from a woman who, I’m pretty sure, babysat Moses. I gave her my card. She looked at me, looked at The Shining, then looked back and me and said "Dearie, there’s no way you’re checking out this book." I brought my father in, and I remember the librarian muttering something about how the book was appropriate for a boy my age. I don’t know what my father said, but the librarian gave him a stern look and added something about his parenting skills. Voices were raised, people were staring, and when I held that book in my hands, as corny as it sounds, it felt magical, like I was holding a valuable treasure. I read The Shining straight through the afternoon and well into the night. I couldn’t put it down. As an added bonus, I couldn’t sleep, either—I was convinced my bedroom, much like the Overlook hotel, was haunted. The important thing was I knew what I wanted to do with my life. And I’ve pretty much spent a good majority of my time trying to figure out a way to make it happen. My first writing class my sophomore year at the University of New Hampshire, I stared what would eventually become Deviant Ways. I continued working on it through graduate school and when I was done, I shopped it around New York until I found an agent, Pam Bernstein, who agreed to represent me. Deviant Ways got some nibbles at the New York houses but it needed some work, so Pam suggested we send it out to Richard Marek, an independent editor who had discovered Robert Ludlum and edited my favorite book of all time, The Silence of the Lambs. Dick said he’d read the book over the weekend. Dick called me back Monday morning. "You need to start over," he said. "Start over from where?" "In your case, page one." Dick said he’d fax me over his comments. I read all nine pages about why my book didn’t work. That letter gave me the best piece of writing advice I have ever received: "I don’t believe you’ve gone deeply enough to face your own fear and your own pain; rather than facing them, I think you’re using this book to run away from them, and that won’t work. Writers expose themselves to themselves (it’s a terrifying and brave act) and then use their books to disguise what it is they’ve discovered as a way to expunge the demons. This may sound melodramatic, but ask any writer. You too, I’m sorry to say, must do the spade work and experience the pain." So I said to myself, fine, you want me to scare you, I’ll do it. Dick was right, of course. Writing Deviant Ways, I was afraid of being labeled weird—more on that in a moment—so I worked with Dick over the next two years and the book sold to Pocketbooks hardcover (now Atria). Pam said to call my new editor right away. "What’s the rush?" "I want her to know you’re normal," Pam said. I called my editor and explained to this lovely Southern woman that not only was I happily married, I had never been committed to a mental institution or suffered from any psychological disorders. I must have seemed convincing since my new editor invited me to New York for lunch. When I came into her office, a publicist was there, a young woman who was around my age. She took one look at me and grabbed her chest. "Oh thank God," she said. "What? What’s wrong?" "You’re normal looking," she said. "What did you expect?" "Well, everyone here has read the book and, well, you know..." That’s pretty much what’s followed me since. My favorite fan letter from the last few years is this one, and pretty much sums it up: Dear Mr. Mooney,  |
