“Stephen King’s Screen Addiction”

Do you realize how many Stephen King stories have been adapted into movies, TV mini-series, and TV series? IMDB.com lists 111 writing credits. That list includes such noteworthy movies as Carrie (1976), The Shining (1980), Stand by Me (1986), Misery (1990), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and The Green Mile (1999).

So when I saw this Entertainment Weekly article — “Stephen King’s Screen Addiction” — I just had to check it out. Here in King’s own words, he talks about what he watches on all the screens in his life:

Can we talk — calmly, and without raising our voices — about screen addiction? I put it that way because no one is quicker to fall into a defensive crouch than a junkie. This is something I know from personal experience. Accusation breeds denial. I’m a social user, the addict says. Besides, I can quit anytime I want.

But can you? Can I, for that matter?

I thought of this when I saw an article from UPI.com (yes, I read it on my computer) that claimed the average American adult spends 8.5 hours a day staring at various screens. The study was commissioned by the Nielsen Company. My initial reaction was classic addict-think: They can’t be talking about me; I don’t spend anywhere near that much time gaping at screens. At first, it seemed a reasonable conclusion. I don’t Twitter, I’m not on Facebook (unless someone else put me there), I’ve never shopped on Craigslist, and I’ve made exactly one eBay purchase (someone else did it for me, because I have no grasp of the protocol). I own a cell phone but don’t use it — I keep it in the car in case I break down in East Overshoe and need a tow. I think it takes pictures, but I have no idea how that function works, and I’ve never texted anyone in my life.

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So when I started to add up my daily screen time, I did so with confidence, and — Uncle Stevie admits it — a sense of superiority. That feeling soon melted away. For me, it breaks down like this: 3.5 hours a day writing in front of my desktop Mac; one hour a day writing and answering e-mails; one hour a day visiting my favorite websites (Drudge, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Kos, EW, The Filthy Critic, The Smoking Gun, etc.); two hours a day watching TV (mostly stuff I’ve downloaded from iTunes or gawped at on Hulu). I’m below the Nielsen average, but still — seven and a half hours per day of computer-related activity? That’s a lot of voyeurism. Put another way, I’m spending almost half of each day’s consciousness right where I am now — with my face bathed in electro-light. It’s hard not to think of George Orwell’s Big Brother telescreens when you realize a thing like that.

First comment: King reads DailyKos! My favorite political website! Well, at least I’ve got something to talk with King about if we ever bump into each other at a Red Sox game or local cemetery.

Second comment: Honestly, I’m in front of a screen twice as much of the day as King. My ‘real’ job at Distillery Pictures, then at night writing, teaching, blogging, emailing, TV shows, movies…

How about you? Do you spend more or less time on screens than Stephen King?

Or me?

And if you haven’t read Stephen King’s book “On Writing”, it’s worth it. Here are a few of his bits of wisdom from the book:

Get the first draft done quickly…

I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave duiring a period of severe sunspot activity.

On rewriting…

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.

What scares the master of fear…

The scariest moment is always just before you start.

Next time you’re facing FADE IN and sucking for air in your clenched chest, remember that even Stephen King gets scared.

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