During my teenage years, I would travel the two-day drive with my mom, brother, and two sisters up to vacationland, aka Maine.
My mother grew up in Bangor during her childhood, and it was wonderful treat for us to spend a few weeks up in the beautiful state.
Each time I went to Bangor, Maine, we would drive around town.
I remember my Nana telling me that Stephen King, the horror writer lived in Bangor.
I was much of a reader in those days.
However, I knew who Stephen King was.
I remember watching “The Fog” based on one of his short stories.
I shouldn’t have watched it.
I was plagued by nightmares for many nights after watching “The Fog.”
I was intrigued to hear that the famous Stephen King lived in the same city as my Nana.
My aunts told me about his house, and I knew I wanted to see the house.
On a sunny day, we drove by Stephen King’s house.
He has a Victorian-style house that is painted in crimson red with white trim.
My aunts told me that the house was painted in a blood-red color.
I think they said that to make his house seem scarier.
Stephen King’s house is surrounded by a black rod iron fence with a spiderweb design on the front gate.
After looking at the house, I wanted to get a picture of me in front of the house but decided against it because I didn’t want to seem like a tourist.
Stephen King is one of America’s most prolific and successful writers.
His books have sold more than 350 million copies.
That is a mind-blowing amount of sold books.
The first of his books to be published was Carrie.
Carrie started as a short story, but Stephen King wasn’t happy with the initial work and tossed the first three pages of Carrie into the garbage can.
His wife retrieved the pages from the garbage can and encouraged Stephen to finish the writing.
Stephen finished the book and felt it was a miserable book.
Carrie went on to become a huge literary hit that was later adapted into a movie.
When he was asked how to write well, he gives us simple advice.
“Read and write for four to six hours a day. If you cannot find time for that, you can’t expect to become a great writer.”
Every day Stephen King has a goal to write 2,000 words.
There’s profound wisdom in Stephen’s actions.
To become a great writer, one has to write.
That is true of so many things in life.
If we want to become good at something we have to do that thing regularly and continually.
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