Stephen King, Part 1

Through the miracle of the internet, and Twitter, in particular, I recently had the opportunity to get a chance to see Stephen King at a reading in Reno.

Really.  That’s what it was like.  There was an announcement that Stephen King would be at the local Barnes & Noble, and, on a certain date, at a certain time, you had to send an e-mail to get into a drawing to get an invitation to get in line with 200-400 other yahoos.

So I sent off my e-mail and got my invitation (which I had to bring with me to the store).

Now, bear in mind that I’m not a crazy Stephen King fan.  I’m just your run-of-the mill Stephen King fan.  I’ve read, and enjoyed, some of his work.  There’s a whole lot I haven’t read, but “On Writing” I’ve read and re-read multiple times.  It’s in that book that I think his personality comes through most strongly, and as a person, I find him funny and entertaining.

So I decided that though I had gotten the opportunity with fairly half-assed enthusiasm, I would at least follow through like a bigger fan than I was.

I was at Barnes & Noble well before the doors opened at 8:00, lined up with the other fans, rabid and otherwise.  And rabid there was.  There was a woman with her nails done with Stephen King cover art, to include a portrait of the great man.  The woman first in line had gotten there at 3:00 a.m.  People had driven hours to get there, as opposed to my measly 20 minutes.  Everyone around me was from out-of-state, some as far as Utah and Washington.  And I only saw one person I knew, which was strange.  Reno’s not that big.

So there was the first line.  I was 102^nd in line.  We got through the door and there was another line, this time to buy the book.  I didn’t actually GET the book – I just bought the opportunity to get an autographed copy.  And then we were free to leave until we had to come back and line up again at 11:00.  For a talk that started at 1:00. 

To be continued…

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