People Are Funny

It’s an old reference, and probably many people are missing many old references in Stephen King books set in the past. In the 1960’s people depended on shows like Art Linkletter’s People Are Funny and Kids Say the Darndest Things to show us what normal was.

If I had to choose one thing that makes Stephen King great, it is that he understand that people want to find a way to say they’re normal…and no one is normal…it is perfectly normal not to be normal.

Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis is a deeply heartfelt collection/novel and essential reading.

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A Skinny Guy

Wow. New England. Stephen King has a running love/hate relationship with it, probably because he understands it inside and out. Hearts in Atlantis  brings us this guy who Stephen King sketches so clearly with his words.

Life Imitates Art

This interesting character from Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis could well describe someone currently in the international spotlight. Art! How well you describe life. If you get a chance to read the story, you’ll find even more similarities in the complete description of this character.

It’s Kool Inside

This sketch pretty much speaks for itself. I am finding it a bit difficult to find suitable scenes in Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis that I won’t spoil the story. This one doesn’t give anything away and includes at least one great quote.

Taking A Dive

Moving slowly through what should be a fast read thanks to the busy-ness of the season.

Other Worlds

I love it that SteKi uses some themes over and over in different novels, and my favorite repeated theme is Other Worlds Than This. Four little words placed in a SteKi story  act as a portal, allowing me to visit my own dreams. So often, I find the other worlds are not so different than my own, just a different quality of light showing off a different bit, a little something put in or left out, a second glance at something that has always been there, but not so different.

From the very nearby other world, Hearts in Atlantis,  come today’s words by Stephen King.

A Really Good Movie

Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis has been sitting on the back burner while I quickly read a library book. Now, with the library book out of the way, I can savor SteKi. This sketch captures a feeling I almost always experience when I leave a movie theater. Maybe you feel it too? That’s why I love SteKi, because he captures the little things about life.

Good Luck

Every morning when I wake up I lie there and think about what I will do today. I usually start by thinking back to what I read the previous day, decide how interesting it was, and prioritize my day’s reading depending on that. That usually leads to the next question of my day: What will I sketch today? The conversation in my head goes like this every morning, only the details change.

Oh yeah, he made that pinky swear. Do you think it will mean something later in the story? I wonder if I could sketch that? A pinky swear, no, I couldn’t sketch that, it’s far too intricate. Is there a way to simplify it? I wonder what pinky swears look like if you really look at them. I wonder if I could try?

From page 77 of Hearts in Atlantis

Unexplored Land

Stephen King. If only he’d write more novels! He is my favorite, I’m not too much of a snob to admit it, and I’ve made up a diminutive for him because I love his books that much. There are lots of SteKi novels I haven’t read for various reasons that became pretty clear to me when I read his fantastic book On Writing.   I ran into one of them, Hearts in Atlantis and it’s been sitting in my to-read pile until yesterday. Somehow, he always speaks my mind. It’s scary. He writes scary novels. It is so fun. (The quotes are found on pp 34-49).

Other Worlds

The suggested music for viewing this sketch is King Harvest’s Dancing in the Moonlight. The suggested activity is, of course, dancing.

Probably my all time favorite line was said by Jake Chambers in Stephen King’s (hereafter referred to as SteKi) The Gunslinger.

Jakes said

Go then, there are other worlds than these.

during a terrible moment in the series. A moment that caused me much pain in the reading. A moment that resonated with truth I had never considered. A moment, like all good moments in reading, in which the foundation of my world shifted. The truth of that moment endures as an empty page, as a blank canvas, as a song unsung for my everyday life. I won’t try to illustrate the line as I feel SteKi has done a fine job using words alone and doesn’t need my help.

The written world is powerful. Whether fiction or non-fiction, words build pictures in our minds. I’ve enjoyed playing along with #worldwatercolorgroup in September, and #inktober in, well, Inktober. I’ve liked it so much that I want to continue committing to sketching from a theme, nearly every day. The new theme will be words I’m seeing, hearing, reading. The rules are simple, nearly every day I’ll do a sketch inspired by Words. If there are words in your head that must be shared with the world, I invite you to play along.