Stephen H. King Guest Post

I’m Stephen King.  Really, that’s my name.  No, not that one.  I’m the other Stephen King, or TOSK as I sometimes sign my blog posts and other works.  No. I didn’t write all those scary books.  No, I don’t live in Maine; it’s one of the few states, in fact, that I’ve never even visited. 

Yes, I’ve been answering questions with the above phrases for most of my life.

I’m Stephen H. King.  I didn’t write the scary books, but I did write Married to Mars, a mythological fantasy that I’m proud to say is in the process of being brought to the world by my friends at Trestle Press.  I had originally thought about writing under a pseudonym; I even registered a good one as a domain name.  It wasn’t long, though, before the split identity got on my nerves.  I like my name, and trying to answer to another after four decades of being Stephen King doesn’t work. 

All that said, I’m incredibly excited to see Married to Mars, my debut novel, being published.  It’s one of the stories I’ve had in my head for years.  In the story, the main character awakens one day to learn she’s married to Mars, as the title implies.  I once explained the premise to an English teacher who asked, “Is this an allegory?”  No, it’s literal.  He’s Mars, also known as Ares, also known as the God of War.  The rest of the story shows her dealing with the news and its implications. 

Actually, that’s not all she has to deal with.  Mars’s ex-wife is Venus, also known as Aphrodite.  She’s the original Goddess of Love, and she’s decided that she wants her old beau back, human wife or no. 

I have other books in mind, of course, one of which is already drafted as a sequel to Married to Mars.  Writing, it turns out, is something I really love to do.  I tried it a bit as a kid, but it never went anywhere.  Four years ago I trotted my creative writing tools back out and failed to finish a novel during NaNoWriMo.  Still, that exercise gave me the confidence to go ahead and start anew, with a completely different project, last February. 

While I wrote the book, I also blogged on the process.  I’ve kept up a nearly-daily blogging schedule since, and you can read the results at http://theotherstephenkingonwriting.blogspot.com.  Hopefully, if nothing else, my experiences will help someone else get through the process to a completed book.