I just caught the tail end of Stephen King's acceptance speech for his National Book Award. He addressed the concerns of a "popular" writer getting an award usually reserved for a more "literate" writer. He pointed out that we can build bridges between the two if we just have an open mind and read. Just read.

He said that he was accepting the award not for being a popular writer or a literate writer, but for being an honest writer.

I truly believe being honest is the most important thing about being a writer. Sure, being a good storyteller and having a good story to tell is important too. But if you're not going to be honest about it, it's not going to be good.

King used the example that most folks' last words are not "Goodbye cruel world" or "I'll see you in heaven." It's almost always something like "Oh Shit." So when you write about such things, be honest, write what you think would really happen or does happen. There's a reason why a lot of black box recordings have a lot of bleeps.

Now I'll exercise my duty as a writer to be honest. Ever gone to the bathroom, gone through what you have to go through to get that euphoric feeling of relief, and then the smell hits you? And it smells so bad you break out in a sweat? You're sitting there thinking there is no way under heaven this came from your body. You actually start to go through the things you ate that day trying to figure out where you went wrong. And you try to pin point that exact moment when you passed out and somebody, somebody evil, fed you sour orange juice and burned catfish.

No? Okay. Come to think about it, being honest doesn't mean sharing everything does it? Oh well.

  ¶ 9:52 PM