Dear Stephen King,
I am writing to you as somewhat of a lapsed fan. I had a spark of intense fandom for your work around ten years ago, when my mom encouraged me to watch the film, "IT", because she knew how much vested interest I had in clowns. When I fell asleep, she tied a balloon to my toes. I did not find it funny, but I did accredit the ensuing night terrors to your literary brilliance, even though it could be argued that the honor rests squarely on the shoulders of my long-suffering mother. Once again, someone else gets credit for the work she did. But I digress.
Around late middle school/early high school I took an interest in actually reading IT, along with The Tommyknockers, Desperation, and probably a couple others, I don't really remember, I've read about a book a week since that date, and honestly your books are the kind i can just buzz through. This isn't necessarily bad, but I probably devour them too quickly to remember important plot points because I am so curious to know how you are going to creatively kill your stock characters.
I found the world you created in your novels enthralling and page-turning, but devoid of a lasting kind of fear. No, sir, you never succeeded in giving me more than a passing "eek", and even those were generous reactions to your carefully constructed suspension tactics.
If you would like to know what future readers might be looking for in a long-lasting, life-ruining fear-fest, you need only peek into the syllabus of a pretentious undergraduate English course.
The first time I picked up Proust's in search of lost time or Beckett's The Unnamable, I stopped sleeping for more than four hours at a time, started drinking whiskey neat and dropped out of my Economics course. Your books, while suspenseful and unexpected, never succeeded in placing an existential cannonball in my gullet like the aforementioned pieces did. That is not to say that I don't like your work. After all, at least Bobbi and Gard worked in some phenomenal sex in the course of a town's disintegration in T-knocks.
(C)literally nothing happens in the aforementioned books of terror. Proust is just so fragile that even a fucking cookie sends him over the edge, and Beckett's careful uncertainty is nothing more than a mimeograph of the nervous inner monologue we all have but like to pretend that we don't hear. Its not a photocopier because it is not sure enough of its purpose to produce a clear picture, so we are just getting used to the muck as we go along. Get it? You probably don't get it because you read for pleasure and not for self destruction.
Digression after digression. The point it, I have an idea for a new book that integrates both the alien-body-snatching qualities of Tommyknockers and the existential dread of Beckett's novelistic endeavors.
Stephen, there are girls in yoga class that don't sweat. They do handstands, they crunch and flip their dogs, they double up on classes where we pretzel our bodies in heated rooms, and they leave looking nothing less than Rick's Ready. (By the way, if you haven't been to Ricks, you should check it out some time. There is definitely a good deal of body snatching going on there.)
These indescribably moisture-less girls are not, as you might think, the lululemon-wearing Tri-Deltas you might initially imagine. i've already taken into account that this particular breed likely has access to some cutting-edge sweat-eliminating Swedish drug that convinces your body to grow an inch of hair in lieu of accumulating sweat. I have accepted that this is probably a very normal, human thing. After all, those sororities are seriously well-connected.
No, these sweat-less goddesses are often wearing some brand of exercise clothing that looks both very sophisticated and very worn. They do not smell like anything other than lemongrass and lavender. They wear buffs and their hair is either all springy curls or a long, coarse brunette. They don't wear makeup--not to class, not to yoga, not to Ricks. Likely, they do not go to Ricks, because they are aliens. They have brown eyes, and artfully designed tattoos that were done using traditional tribal practices. Sometimes, they have a nose ring.
These girls look like they could be my friend, if I weren't so neurotic and sweaty. When I have tendrils of bang-hair plastered to my forehead, they are gracefully balancing in a four minute crow posture and the sun is rising off of their small, round asses, and there is not a drop of sweat, except maybe one falling from their cheeks, like a tear but happy because these girls are just so happy. But again, in a quiet way. They don't talk. They just mona lisa smile all over the room and look like the opening montage to a high-budget romantic comedy.
Stephen, where do these girls come from? Is having an excellent hand-stand vinyasa a new way of creating a marvelous invention from an ordinary object?
Are they aliens? Or is there like, a club for girls that don't smell bad when they work out and I just wasn't invited?
This kind of existential fear of missing out (E-fomo), combined with the existence of what are obviously supernatural creatures, would be the ideal start to a new book by you, one that would effectively cannonball the gullets of all non-hopeless literature lovers. You might be asking, Olivia, why dont you write this novel? Why save all of the glory, money and fame for me?
Well Stephen, I figure that at this stage in your career, you can stand to take a risk. This, while it will certainly be your best work-to-date, will seem like such a risk at first. But then, with the endorsement of your name and loyal fan base, it will flourish, whether its good or not. And believe me, it will be good.
However, if I premiere my horror novel empire with this piece, people might immediately niche me into Body Terror or some other undesirable sub-category of a genre, and I want to keep my options open.
Therefore, I've resolved to never finish anything I write and continue to have boundless potential. Currently, I'm writing a never-to-be-finished play about Icarus and Ariadne, both of whom have been over-written to death, but not, to their dismay, by me. So once I half-finish my opinion on their lives, maybe I would half-write this story. But this story should not be half-written. This is a story designed to terrify an entire generation of people who are just kinda good at a couple things, and who are not good at sports, and consider yoga a sport.
Anyway, I look forward to reading this book about sweat-less yoga monsters; please be advised, they are all brunettes.
With Love,
Olivia Lloyd
P.S.
I only request that I get a nod in the acknowledgement section, with some obscure thank you that sounds like we have had a good deal of really excellent times together, basking in one another's literary prolificacy.
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