Today we’re pleased to welcome author Georgina Morales to the blog – look out for her in the Indie Author Event in May – with a special guest post to Stephen King…let’s see what she has to say….
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I always try to write original guest posts, engaging and fun so as to not embarrass my host out of ever inviting me again. Most of the time I debate on how to do it and most of the times I end up talking about my books and works in progress.
You see, we writers are a funny bunch. We want you to know our names, though we suffer from acute shyness. There’s not one writer who won’t say that, in order to make it in the world you have to believe in yourself, yet we are afflicted by an extreme case of self-doubt and paralyzing fear to fail. We crave attention but not for ourselves, instead we love it when perfect strangers fall in love with our alter egos, those obscure voices that torture us until we get their story write and put in paper.
Yep, that’s us. A walking contradiction. We usually tend to avoid opening our hearts to our readers, preferring to let them peek into our souls through our books. Well, today I’ll try something different. I’ll take this wonderful opportunity to share with you an important set of events that have made me the writer I am today.
I refer to these events as “My Stephen King Complication”. It is somewhat funny and frustrating but I also know there’s a bigger design that may hold more than a couple of surprises for me in the future. Though I can’t be sure of what lies ahead, I wrote the following letter because I want to acknowledge the one man that has influenced me the most in my life with books. I want to thank him for touching me in such a special way and for inspiring me to come as far as I’ve come.
What follows is a letter for Stephen King; within its words resides a big piece of me. I still don’t know if I’ll mail it one day. I suppose I will, though fear of rejection has kept me from sending it before. Instead, today I share it with you. See what you think of my trip so far; how it relates to your own special ‘complications’ and to those great voices that have guided you along the way. Hope you like it.
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My Letter To Stephen King
Hi Mr. King,
That’s how well bred Mexicans always greet someone they don’t know. It’s very hard for us to call someone by his first name when there’s no previous relationship. My husband, however, keeps lecturing me about how stiff that sounds to Americans. Well, I was also taught that wherever you go, you do as they do. So, Stephen it is.
Hi Stephen, my name is Georgina and I’m your fan. Yeah, I know, me and the whole horde chanting your name outside the window. I guess I’m no different to all your other fans, except for the fact that destiny has been preventing us to meet.
Ok, preventing me from meeting you. Or to even getting close to your autograph. Whatever the case, I’ll explain myself so you don’t think I’m a nutcase and will pull an Annie Wilkes’ stunt on you.
This mess started a long, long time ago, when I was a kid. I grew up in Mexico City to a very regular, run-of-the-mill middle class family. I grew surrounded by books because my mother is a reader, but more of a romance-fantasy-mystery kinda reader. However, my father’s oldest brother was an avid reader, too. His bedroom in my grandma’s house, and where we slept when we stayed, was covered with horror, suspense, and thrillers. I still remember staring at those covers for hours. I was too young to read but I dreamed of the stories those pages conveyed and that’s how I came to realize my innate love for the genre.
It goes without saying that many of your books filled those walls—yet I point it out just to be clear—and that’s how I knew your name for the first time. I was only elated when I found “Carrie” among my mom’s bookcases. I stole it from there and hid it under my pillow. I know, not the best place to hide anything when you don’t make your own bed. Anyhow, I guess my mom didn’t think I could do much with it because she let me keep it there. The pages became gray in the corners where I turned them incessantly, even though I could read nothing that had more than four letters.
Time passed and with my goal in sight, I became a proficient reader. Soon I took the book and started reading it. Except I didn’t understand half a page of what was written. You see, reading and understanding are two completely different things, I learned. The many euphemisms and metaphors were too complex for me, and I got the feeling that I was being left out of the joke. After the fiftieth time I asked my mother “what does he mean when he says she felt tired like if she had prayed a whole rosary on her knees?” she advised me—as gentle as a yell can be—not to read something if I couldn’t understand it. I was barely on page twenty or so, and I stopped.
Years later I watched the movie version and loved it but by then my social life was getting more hectic and I’d forgotten my old grudge with “Carrie”, the book. It was then that my mom decided she had to do something to instill the love of reading in me. Right when I had no interest on it anymore. It figures. She then decided that an adventure book would do the trick and bought me “Treasure Island”.
I hated it. She kept telling me how exciting the story would get, and I kept struggling to move forward even one page. I finished it after many months and several threats of quitting. “Respect the book,” mom told me, “never leave a book mid-way”, and I’ve never done.
The day I finished I threw me a party and drank all the root beer my body could handle. Even to this date, fantasy and adventure are the genres I least enjoy—Thanks mom. —
Of course, the next day I searched those old bookcases and took Carrie down. I finished it in two weeks. Two weeks!! After seven months with the previous one. It was clear this was my path.
I don’t know if you ever toured in Mexico or did some kind of promotional appearance, but I never heard of it, so I grew up thinking authors were these semi-gods living up in the clouds where no one can find them, much less meet them.
I read a lot of your books, decided becoming a writer was not a viable option if I ever wanted to be able to sustain myself, and studied a ‘real’ profession. Then got married, got a child, and moved to the US. It was attending a spinning class at the local YMCA that a lady there saw me carrying the hefty book—”Cell”—that was my read of the moment.
“Ah, Stephen King. He writes big books, but they’re so good,” this lady said. I smiled and was about to agree with her when she added, “I remember seeing him once in a conference talking about his books. A very nice guy, indeed.”
It stopped me on my tracks. I could almost hear the angelic chant from the sky that always accompanies a great revelation. I could meet you in person! It was possible! All I had to do was find the place of your next appearance and kill if needed to be there.
I got home and looked on the Internet. I discovered you had an official website and subscribed, but the good news stopped there. You are not doing personal appearances anymore. Life had gotten in our way.
Fast-forward a few years to 2010. Do you remember that personal appearance in New York City? Hell, yeah! I bought my ticket, got super excited, and told everyone within an earshot that I was going to meet Stephen King. Then my husband got transferred to Montreal. Whatever. We looked for a nanny and were planning our drive back to attend when we got news that our tickets had gotten lost on the way. We asked them to re-issue the tickets but those, too, got lost.
Goddammit! There was nothing else that could be done. So I cried that day and threw a shaking-fist-tantrum to the universe for keeping us apart.
A year later I got wind of the special edition of IT through your website. I logged in to buy my signed copy and there were none left. Fine!
This year I tried with the signed copy of 11/22/63. This time I logged in at eight o’clock and paid for my copy. Yoo-hoo! I did my happy dance all morning… until Simon & Schuster called to say there had been a blip in the system and my order hadn’t passed. The copies were now sold out and they were sending me a free copy of the book. Sans signing. Are you f$%& kidding me?!
Ok, you know what? Fine. Life doesn’t want me to know my favorite author and inspiration? I don’t care. I have a theory. Now that I’m a published horror writer, albeit an unknown one, destiny is keeping us apart until we meet each other on the hallways of one of the ‘big six’ as colleagues.
Sorry, I was choking from laughing and eating lunch at the same time. Where was I? Oh, yes. I was daydreaming.
Anyway, Mr. King. Stephen. I just want to thank you for all those nightmares of my youth, for providing me with such a great and disturbing imagination, for being my goal for so many years. I truly hope one day our books can meet each other on a shelf somewhere if it is not for ourselves to meet.
Keep being awesome and just know how many lives you have touched and changed.
Thanks again,
Georgina Morales
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About the Author
Born in Mexico City, Georgina was always divided between the world of the paranormal, the religious, and science, even as a kid. Through her years in medical school, she experienced and heard all kinds of creepy tales. She, now, writes from her home in Norwalk, Ct. where she resides in the company of her husband and two young daughters. The history of the northeast, its old buildings, and its endless forests provide her imagination with a constant influx of ideas, which combined with her rich background make for her unique style. She’s also a staff reviewer for Dark River Press.
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Want to know more? Check out the links!
www.diaryofawriterinprogress.blogspot.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Perpetual-Night-by-Georgina-Morales/159894374059399
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4646361.Georgina_Morales
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