A Writer's Tale (24 page)

TO THOSE WHO OBSERVE ME FROM AFAR, I APPEAR TO BE ON permanent vacation.

Unlike most people, I’m not shocked awake each weekday morning by an alarm clock. I don’t commute. I don’t seem to have “a real job” at all. I am running loose when nearly everyone else is busy at work. Ann and I go out for breakfast or lunch at restaurants whenever we feel the urge. We can and do go to movies on weekday mornings or afternoons. We can and do spend a month or two traveling every year.

It’s a great life.

I have more freedom than just about anyone I know.

And I have no doubt that some of my friends and relatives resent it. The way I see things, however, I achieved this lifestyle because I aimed for it and worked hard.

They probably could have been writers, too, if they’d had the urge and been willing to do what it takes.

While they’re busy envying me, however, they mostly see only the surface. They see how free I am. They can’t help but notice that large, new books supposedly written by me appear with somewhat startling frequency. But they haven’t much of a clue about what really goes on during my daily life.

Here is a look at what happens
in addition to
all that freedom.

During the years that I did have a “real job,” I worked full time for my employers, but I also found a couple of hours almost every weekday to devote to my writing. On nearly every Saturday and Sunday, I wrote for four to five hours per day.

Now that I’m a free man, things are different.

But not
that
different.

On most days, I get out of bed whenever I wake up which is usually about 7 a.m. I like to be up first in the house. I make my coffee, bring in the morning newspaper, then usually sit around in the living room, drinking coffee and reading a book for about an hour.

Two or three times a week, I take a four-mile hike after I finish my morning read.

At around 8:30 or 9:30 a.m. (mostly depending on whether I take a walk that day), I go up to my office above my backyard garage and start working.

Usually, the work involves writing a novel.

I begin by reading and revising the pages (on my computer screen) that I wrote on the previous day. This not only gives me a chance to repair any sloppy writing, but it pulls me back into the story. When I reach the end of yesterday’s pages, it’s usually a simple matter to write the next sentence, and the next, and just keep going.

Usually, I write until about 11:30. Then I go into the house for lunch. We may watch half an hour of television while we eat. Then I may read for half an hour, or take a quick nap.

At about 12:30, I return to the office. To get started again, I read the last couple of pages written that morning. Then I resume writing and continue until about 3:30 p.m.

That’s the end of the day’s writing.

It usually adds up to about five hours.

My minimum goal for a day of writing is five manuscript pages. It doesn’t always happen.

If a story is going really well, however, I might write eight to ten pages in a single day.

I usually don’t push it. (And I like to quit when I still know what’s supposed to happen next.)

When I’m done with writing for the day, I return to the house, sit down in my armchair with a beer and a novel and stay there until about 5:00 p.m., when we eat supper.

Ever since the invention of the VCR, we have eaten our supper in the living room and watched a tape of the previous night’s David Letterman show. When we can’t watch Dave (after all, he’s only on five nights a week) we usually watch news shows.

After dinner and Dave, I spend most of my time reading until we settle down to some serious TV watching at either 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. We usually watch TV (network shows, cable, movie rentals, news, whatever) until about midnight.

That’s a typical day.

It involves about five hours of writing, at least five hours of reading (mostly fiction), and about four hours of watching television shows or films.

Naturally,
every
day isn’t like that.

At least one day each week, we go off on a shopping trip of some kind (to buy office supplies, a new lamp, new paint for the porch, or whatever) and usually have lunch on the road. At least once a week, we go out to a movie. On Sundays, we have our “traditional breakfast” and I usually don’t start writing until about noon. And I sometimes lose a morning of work because I need to run errands: get the car washed, get a haircut, go to the bank or post office or dentist.

Every so often, an entire day or two goes by without a ‘word being written by me. This might happen if I need to read and correct proofs, if I have a book signing, if we go to the County Fair or Disneyland, if we attend a convention or go off on some other sort of small excursion.

The schedule gets thrown out the window completely whenever we go on a major trip.

We might go away for a week, or even three weeks at a time. During those periods, I usually manage to get a bit of reading done, but I don’t write at all. Except to take notes.

Some of my best ideas come while we’re traveling.

If we go on a long trip before I’ve finished a novel, getting started again after returning home can be extremely difficult. Once or twice, I’ve actually been
unable
to do it, and have gone on to a different project. Usually, however, I can get back into a novel by rereading the entire manuscript. It’s much better to finish a “novel in progress” before leaving home for any significant period of time.

Also before embarking, a professional novelist will almost certainly have to deal with “page proofs.” Publishers seem to have a psychic awareness of every writer’s approaching trip.

They may have been in possession of the manuscript for a year or longer, but they carefully time the galleys to arrive at the writer’s door just a day or two before he is scheduled to depart. He then finds himself in a mad rush to reread his entire book, mark every mistake, send off the corrections and finish packing.

You see, a writer’s life is more than writing.

Among other things, it includes all the chores that surround the creation of a novel.

I not only frequent bookstores, but I’m also a regular visitor to office supply stores, my local photocopy shop, and the post office. I also spend a lot of time at computer stores, replacing and updating my equipment.

If you’re a writer, you don’t need to be on the internet.

But you really should have a good computer and printer. (A fax machine speeds up communication with agents and publishers, but is hardly essential.) You must also have a big supply of ink and paper and envelopes and mailing boxes.

Thus, you are regularly forced to take breaks in the writing schedule (whether you want them or not) to deal with the somewhat prosaic matters involved in maintaining a workable office.

There are a
lot
of necessary interruptions.

Sometimes they are nuisances. Other times, they come as welcome relief. After a few days of full time writing, I often start to feel a little stir-crazy. I need to get away from the computer, away from the house, and do something
anything
other than sit alone in the office and continue chugging ahead with my book.

I love writing.

I have to write.

If I’m away from it for very long, I start longing to get back into action.

But it
is
work. Even if everyone I know seems to think I’m on permanent vacation (and I encourage the image by making cracks about being on early retirement), there is a need for me to sit down almost every day and focus on a story and write pages.

Five pages a day.

Thirty to forty pages per week.

Probably about 1,500 pages per year.

Year in and year out.

When I’m not writing, I’m often
thinking
about it. Toying with plot ideas. Keeping my eyes open for unusual characters, places, and situations that I might use in a novel or short story.

Even when I’m on trips, I’m constantly on the lookout for fresh material.

The “permanent vacation” is no vacation at all. I’m a full-time writer. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’m always on the job.

But I’m doing what I want to do.

In spite of all the drawbacks, the writer’s life is a great life. If you can manage to pull it off. And I believe that anyone can. All it takes is desire, persistence, guts, and a little bit of luck.

My 10 Favorite Vampire Novels Written By Others

1. 
Dracula -
Bram Stoker

2. Fevre Dream -
George R. R. Martin

3. 
I Am Legend -
Richard Matheson

4. 
Interview with the Vampire -
Anne Rice

5. 
The Keep -
F. Paul Wilson

6. 
Live Girls -
Ray Garton

7. 
Necroscope
-
Brian Lumley

8. 
Progengy
of the Adder -
Leslie H. Whitten

9. 
Salem’s Lot -
Stephen King

10. 
They Thirst -
Robert R. McCammon

My Books

HITCHCOCK DIDN’T GET AROUND TO MAKING A FILM BASED ON
THE Cellar.
In spite of that, I used to suspect that, no matter what else I might write, I would be seen as “the guy who wrote
The Cellar!”

Robert Bloch wrote
Psycho.

Richard Laymon wrote
The Cellar.

There are worse fates. It is exciting to know that
The Cellar
had a major impact on so many readers and writers. Still, it wasn’t exactly thrilling to think that, no matter how many other books I might write, I would always be best known for the first.

At least I’d be in good company. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Margaret Mitchell and J.D. Salinger, for instance.

At this point, nearly two decades after I wrote
The Cellar,
I still have people tell me that it’s their favorite book of mine. But it has been followed by nearly thirty other novels.

It is no longer the work most often mentioned by my fans. In fact, nearly
every
book is mentioned, now and then, as a favorite. At this point, some titles competing with
The Cellar
for favorite status seem to be
The Stake, Funland,
and
Savage.

In the pages that follow, I will tell you a little about
all my
books.

THE CELLAR

Having recently written in exhaustive detail about the creation of
The Cellar
for a limited edition, I won’t rehash the same material here. Instead, perhaps readers of
this
book would find it interesting to see my first notes for
The Cellar.
I found them recently. They were typed on my old IBM Executive, single-spaced on six pages of old blue paper. These notes were written for the sole purpose of working out ideas for my new novel, and were never intended for publication.

Except for fixing a few spelling errors and typos, I have changed nothing, omitted nothing. These are my complete notes for the day I started working on
The Cellar.

Novel idea May 29, 1977 HOUSE OF THE BEAST

There is an old house either in a small rural town, or maybe in a city like L.A. Better a small town. On a dare, a boy enters it in dead of night. It’s deserted. Nobody had lived there for years. Boy goes in, doesn’t come out. People go looking. Find remains. Kid has been eaten. House searched.

Nobody, nothing alive found. They figure an animal from the hills had been inside house.

What kind of animal? Mountain lion? This happened, perhaps, in distant past.

Maybe story is told by guy who ‘was there originally, one who dared the kid to go inside.

Returns, as adult, to solve the mystery. Finds that the house is still there. Nobody had lived in it since the bit with the kid.

It has been converted into the town historical museum. The Historical society has it open during the day. Nobody there at night. Maybe guard on grounds. Could have scene in which something happens to guard hears something inside, goes to investigate, never seen again.

So whatever is in house, only bothers people at night. (Maybe use Winchester house as loose model for it.) Climax, main character(s) enter at night to find out secret.

Best if there is real person inside. But is the person the beast? Make it real, not a spirit.

What has it been doing during the twenty years since it killed the kid? Maybe it’s something that sleeps in the house, only kills people when they enter at night and wake it up.

Most logical, it’s a real person. Hey! It is an entrepreneur, who wanted house to be legendary, wanted tourists.

Could be a family tradition. It is responsibility of current generation to keep the legend alive by occasionally eating someone in the house at night. Maybe only needs to do one per generation, to keep legend going.

Place is actually called HOUSE OF THE BEAST. Has been an attraction in the town for as long as anyone can remember.

Owners of HOUSE must arrange for someone to enter it at night, once in a while. As kid, main guy was unwitting partner in the plot. He was curious, talked to owner (at ticket window). So owner knew he was thinking about entering. Maybe he enters with another kid. They get separated. He finds body, runs in fright.

Must be very careful not to let this stuff get too much like
Salem’s Lot.
Which also has guy returning. What was his motive for returning?

Maybe go goes back for different reason. A friend is getting married, maybe, and he’s to be best-man. Maybe it’s his brother. Somebody else shows up for wedding, a friend of the bride. They start seeing each other. For fun on an afternoon, they enter HOUSE OF BEASTS.

People come from all over country to see the famous house, and tour it. Tickets about five bucks apiece. A real goldmine.