The Surface Pro, Stephen King and me

 My generous husband gave me a Surface Pro for Christmas. I resisted it, wedded to my old Dell which needs coaxing into life and crashes at crucial moments and is constantly `recovering’, like an alcoholic friend. Slowly, over January, I began the betrayal, helped by a special- lovely blue- cushion, which stopped the Surface Pro slipping off my lap (I have very short legs, so a truncated lap). And now today, when I finally reached for it automatically, rather than reluctantly, it won’t turn on. The charger is lit, I’ve separated it from the keyboard several times, but... nothing. So I’m writing this blog on the old Dell which is acting all smug and booted up like a dream. And I know if it’s really misbehaving, all I have to do is turn it face down on my lap- like a naughty child in a Victorian novel- and take out the battery for a few seconds.

As Stephen King says: `Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.’ It’s easy to persuade myself that my old Dell is someone who believes in me, the Surface Pro just doesn’t care. It’s got an important pitch locked away behind its dark screen.

I never realised that Stephen King used to have such a drug and alcohol problem, which he is very candid and amusing about in `On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft’. He talks about having used the `Hemingway Defense’: `as a writer, I am a very sensitive fellow, but I am also a man, and real men don’t give in to their sensitivities. Only sissy-men do that. Therefore I drink. How else can I face the existential horror of it all and continue to work?’ I’ve seen this defence work with a number of my therapy clients, from artists to actors, from surgeons to social workers. We all like to think we are sensitive and exposed to daily existential horrors. I had a poster on my wall at uni with the caption: `Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.’

Apparently what really decided him to quit, was his character, Annie, in `Misery’ (later made into a great movie with Kathy Bates and James Caan). Annie is a psychotic nurse and fan who captures and then tortures a writer. As King says: `Annie was coke, Annie was booze, and I decided I was tired of being Annie’s pet writer.’

 

He ends this section of his memoir by saying this: `Put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.’ Personally, I like to write in bed a la Somerset Maugham. Which is why I need a lovely blue cushion.