{"id":1827,"date":"2018-03-20T11:16:49","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T15:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2018-03-20T11:16:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T15:16:49","slug":"on-being-nineteen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/on-being-nineteen\/","title":{"rendered":"On Being Nineteen"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I started reading Stephen King\u2019s\u00a0Dark Tower<\/em>\u00a0novels<\/a>, one of the things that resonated with me is his introduction, \u201cOn Being Nineteen\u201d, which is included in each book in the series (at least the editions I\u2019ve been reading).<\/p>\n

In his essay, King covers his motivations for starting\u00a0The Gunslinger<\/a><\/em>\u00a0way back when he was just a teenager and details the book\u2019s pop culture influences: Tolkien\u2019s epic fantasy trilogy\u00a0The Lord of the Rings<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and Sergio Leone\u2019s spaghetti Western\u00a0The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

(B)efore the film was even half over, I realized that what I wanted to write was a novel that contained Tolkien\u2019s sense of quest and magic but set against Leone\u2019s almost absurdly majestic Western backdrop.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This line particularly struck me\u00a0because I realized I had a very similar kind of motivation for writing\u00a0The Girl With The Star-Stained Soul<\/em>. My goals for my novel are to take the kind of epic, chilling cosmic horror Lovecraft worked with and set it against my take on a classic Southern gothic setting. And, in doing so, tackle the racism in Lovecraft\u2019s work\u00a0(which was largely also my own white Southern ancestors\u2019 racism) head on.<\/p>\n

Which ties in with remarks King makes a bit earlier in his introduction:<\/p>\n

I think novelists come in two types, and that includes the sort of fledgling novelist I was by 1970. Those who are bound for the more literary or \u201cserious\u201d side of the job examine every possible subject in light of this question: What would writing this sort of story mean to me? Those whose destiny (or ka, if you like) is to include the writing of popular novels are apt to ask a very different one: What would writing this sort of story mean to others? The \u201cserious\u201d novelist is looking for answers and keys to the self; the \u201cpopular\u201d novelist is looking for an audience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is something I wrestle with. I don\u2019t think that being a \u201cserious\u201d author and a popular one need to be mutually exclusive. But there\u2019s a balance to be struck there, for sure. I know full well that many teenaged readers won\u2019t give a toss about Lovecraft or his racism; I have to offer them a compelling, entertaining story. I have to be concerned with my audience and what my story will mean to them. Because, ultimately, if my book fails to find an audience, it won\u2019t be read, and it will limit the opportunities for anything else I write.<\/p>\n

But at the same time, I am still using the narrative to seek answers for myself; if I were solely interested in fiction writing as commerce, I could pick a topic far more marketable than this one. I am seeking those keys King mentioned. My novel\u2019s function in this regard might be riding in the back seat, but it\u2019s still there and part of the journey. This novel is in some aspects a dialog I can never have with long-dead relatives whom I have little in common with besides a few mysterious twists of DNA. Or perhaps it will simply function as a condemnation of and angry epitaph for a Southern culture that is receiving a well-deserved burial; I\u2019ve never been especially good at speaking with my living relatives, much less the dead ones.<\/p>\n

King wrote \u201cOn Being Nineteen\u201d shortly before the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. And that award marked him as the kind of author he claimed to not be.\u00a0May we all experience such irony in our writing careers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I started reading Stephen King\u2019s\u00a0Dark Tower\u00a0novels, one of the things that resonated with me is his introduction, \u201cOn Being Nineteen\u201d, which is included in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[65,35],"tags":[99,108],"class_list":["post-1827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dark-fantasy","category-horror","tag-lovecraft","tag-stephen-king"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Stephen_King_-_2011-e1521558863827.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qT6f-tt","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1834,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/the-gunslinger\/","url_meta":{"origin":1827,"position":0},"title":"The Gunslinger","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"March 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Gunslinger\u00a0is the first novel in\u00a0The Dark Tower, Stephen King\u2019s classic, epic cross-genre series. It introduces the reader to the last gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, as he pursues The Man in Black across a vast land\u00a0laid to waste. The setting\u00a0is part Wild West, part medieval fantasy, and part far-future dystopia.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/gunslinger.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1838,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/the-drawing-of-the-three\/","url_meta":{"origin":1827,"position":1},"title":"The Drawing of the Three","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"March 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Drawing of the Three\u00a0by Stephen King is the second volume in\u00a0The Dark Tower, his epic, cross-genre novel series. I enjoyed the first novel,\u00a0The Gunslinger, but for me, this is where\u00a0The Dark Tower\u00a0really starts to get interesting. One of the aspects of\u00a0the novel\u00a0that I found particularly interesting\u00a0was King\u2019s narrative technique\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "book review"","block_context":{"text":"book review","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/book-review\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-ii-the-drawing-of-the-three-2-e1522196624333.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-ii-the-drawing-of-the-three-2-e1522196624333.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-ii-the-drawing-of-the-three-2-e1522196624333.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-ii-the-drawing-of-the-three-2-e1522196624333.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/the-dark-tower-ii-the-drawing-of-the-three-2-e1522196624333.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":662,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/movie-review-the-return-of-the-king\/","url_meta":{"origin":1827,"position":2},"title":"Movie Review: The Return of the King","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"This final installment in Peter Jackson's filmed trilogy based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is a hard film to review properly because there's so much packed into the movie's 3.5 hours ... where to begin? Is it epic? This movie hearkens back to the vast old epics of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "movie"","block_context":{"text":"movie","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/movie\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":610,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/on-horror\/","url_meta":{"origin":1827,"position":3},"title":"On Horror","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"October 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Horror is not a genre, like the mystery or science fiction or the western. It is not a kind of fiction, meant to be confined to the ghetto of a special shelf in libraries or bookstores. Horror is an emotion.\"-- Douglas Winter, 1982 As a literary genre, \"horror\" can be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "genre"","block_context":{"text":"genre","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/genre\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=lookwhatifoun-20&l=ur2&o=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":546,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/fantasy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1827,"position":4},"title":"Fantasy","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"March 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The literary genre of fantasy, along with science fiction and horror, can itself be put under the larger genre umbrella of speculative fiction. Thus, the definitions in this article should be considered roughly descriptive rather than prescriptive. There's a lot of genre crossover in some of my favorite speculative fiction\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "genre"","block_context":{"text":"genre","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/genre\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":554,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/on-dark-fantasy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1827,"position":5},"title":"On Dark Fantasy","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"February 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In the 1990s, dark fantasy became regarded as being \"code\" for horror. Why? Major publishers who flooded the market with awful, horrible, no-good novels in the 1980s to cash in on horror's popularity decided it was the genre's fault when readers were unwilling to buy mass-produced dreck. But, the market\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "dark fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"dark fantasy","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/dark-fantasy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1827"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1830,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions\/1830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}