Dear Mr. King,

Having recently embarked on a writing career, I picked up a copy of your autobiographical tutorial, On Writing to read and hopefully register in my simple brain. As you say in your book, fear kept me from starting and at first I shied away from actually opening it. You know all too well why. I was afraid of finding reasons I could never succeed.
Because of your candor and able wit the opposite occurred. I found your book not only useful in a practical sense; to learn the painstaking regimen behind any flourishing artistic endeavor, but you also reaffirmed many of the promising traits I found I had already been using. You gave me permission to continue writing as I have and followed with ways to just do it better(I’ll have to start editing out most of those nasty adverbs though).Your pages on the magic writers experience was especially enlightening, since I’ve always believed any talent that way could only be attributed to some spark of genius well beyond my limited understanding. And I’ve personally had it happen on occasion. The words just seem to form effortlessly in a parallel universe and somehow they’re mystically transferred to my waking brain.
That is the magic!
In your autobiographical preface I found striking similarities in our upbringing. My father died when I was eleven years old, but with five children and trying to maintain a sober lifestyle after years of abuse himself, he had little time for any one of us. Even when alive he worked sporadically because of a back injury during WW2, placing most of our care in the hands our mother, a small but determined woman all of five feet tall.
She was our rock and not surprisingly my model growing up. Although I fell into alcoholism early on (starting at fifteen) I watched her work tirelessly to keep the family going. One of her greatest pleasures was reading. She always had a book on the go.
Before my own dance with those cursed demons of addiction took root, I became an all consuming reader myself. At an early age, five or six, I too devoured comic books at an enormous rate. My room filled with cardboard boxes of old DC and Action comics along with Marvel regulars. At one time I held an original copy of the Fantastic Four’s first edition, #1 in the series. Sadly it disappeared along with those many happy remnants of my childhood.
Another parallel seems to be the addition gene. I’ve now been sober over twenty one years. Unfortunately my alcoholic lifestyle pulled me away from any useful endeavors for all of twenty years, but in that time I became a father to two sons and by the grace of a loving God they have never seen me drink. My divorce sent me on the painful road of personal self discovery and after three years of sobriety, I took custody of my children. Needless to say, they took up most of my energy for the next ten to fifteen years. I had been fortunate to have such a wonderful teacher in my loving mother.
I retired almost four years ago and since have devoted my time to writing( it also manages to keeps me out of trouble I’ve found ). I love telling a story and for that reason I’ve searched out as much information as possible to learn more. My tastes run similar to yours but growing up my draw was always to high end science fiction. Old movies too spurred me on. Staying up late watching This Island Earth, Forbidden Planet and the all time classic, The Day The Earth Stood Still and many more was always a thrill. They will forever be science fiction to me. This year after seeing the awful remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, I decided to write a treatment based on those first contact themes from the original. A different story for a different generation.
That’s why your book has been such a revelation. Although I believe it’s my best work to date( it’s my third finished novel, the first I self published ) I knew it still needed another full scale edit and rewrite. Thanks to you Mr. King I’m confident in making it a more appealing read.
I’d like to leave you with a simple line of what you call the magic from my latest effort. Believe me, I still don’t know where it came from except....
The line is actually the second last paragraph from the novel’s end. The aliens have left a small Utah town they have inhabited for the last seven days.
It goes like this... “ On many nights after you’d pass by people in the town and if you watched, their gaze would switch skyward to the black, and in those glints that are stars too far to know, a wonder would possess them.
And in that wonder one question endlessly repeated... Will they ever return?”

This is one of my magic moments Mr. King. Thank you for your time, and thank you for your book, On Writing.

P.S.
I wrote this letter hoping to send you my accolades on that simple yet most helpful book you wrote, On Writing. I pulled up your website to find a way of sending you this note and Lo and Behold, I discover you have written a book, Under The Dome, that exactly mimics the concept of my latest writing effort, Seven Days Without Snow.
My book tells the story of an impassible dome or bubble forming over a small Utah community on Christmas Eve. Aliens have landed and the fun begins. Unfortunately now, no matter how well I tell the story it becomes unsalvageable. I am at a loss.
Mr. King I’m sure your book is great and without a doubt I’m going to read it, but how’s that for dumb luck! A finished manuscript now just words...meaningless.
How in this whole wide world of can something this anti-karmic happen?
I am heartbroken, yet I will carry on. I guess I’m just venting.
I wish you great success and hopefully my next idea with come from another chamber of my brain. Good luck and again thank you for your truth in words.

A Grateful Fan,
Raymond Hogan