I don't like Stephen King. I have known this for a while but it was brought back to the forefront last week when I attempted (and failed) to read Under the Dome, King's latest best seller. To be clear, I have nothing against him personally and I actually think he is a very talented writer--I often quote his essays on writing in my classes. And I don't begrudge anyone who enjoys reading his books. No, I just don't care for his stories themselves ... or, perhaps more accurately, I don't care for his worldview. No matter your opinion of King's stories, it is hard to argue that he has a pretty dismal worldview. If King is to be trusted:

• Pretty much everyone is twisted and psychotic in one way or another--even the good guys.
• People in desperate situations are more likely to turn on each other than try to resolve the situation.
• Most people are more infatuated with power than doing good--especially people who are in positions to do good.
• People who aren't infatuated with power are not only rare, they are also beat down and isolated by those who are.
• Religious people are fanatics and extremists who, deep down, believe in blood sacrifice first and doing good last.
• The government is both inept and always knee-deep in dark, horrifying conspiracies.
• Psychos are common.
• Maine is mostly populated with said psychos.
• Good guys are almost always former covert ops or ex-military.
• Anyone named "Randall" is big trouble.

All in all, King's world is a pretty depressing place. Take Under the Dome, King's most recent novel. It is about a town that mysteriously becomes trapped in some kind of transparent energy field. Almost immediately, the psychos in the town gain power and people start to turn on each other. Things just go from bad to worse and then keep getting worse. It was so depressing I only made it about a third of the way (I have never made it past the half-way mark of any King book, despite my many attempts). And that is pretty much how I feel about King's stories. The thing is, I do enjoy horror stories. In the past few years, I have become a pretty big Dean Koontz fan and I have read several of his books. But, despite using similar material in their stories and having the same first initial in their last name (a coincidence I always found a bit amusing), there is a world of difference between Koontz and King novels. For one thing, while psychos do exist in almost every Koontz book, they are the exception, not the rule. Most people in Koontz' stories are good, decent folks who are just trying to do what is right. And while Koontz' good guys share some similarities with King's (many of them also seem to have some sort of military background and they often harbor dark secrets in their past), they are people who you can trust and rally behind. And, perhaps most important, the good guys overcome incredible odds to become the good guys that they are. For example, I recently finished reading the first three of Koontz' Odd Thomas series. The books, which I highly recommend, are about Odd Thomas, a young man who can see (but not talk to) ghosts. The ghosts come to him seeking help to resolve whatever wrong is keeping them on the terrestrial plane. Odd (who really is named "Odd") helps them. There isn't anything in it for Odd. In fact, there are many reasons why he shouldn't help people, the main ones being that it often gets him in trouble and brings pain (or death) to those he loves. But he does it anyway, just because it is right. Like most of Koontz' characters, Odd comes from a dark past. His mother is fairly psychotic and his father is a jerk beyond words. Odd had a very unhappy childhood and ran away at a young age to fend for himself. Add to that the dark, sinister things the ghosts show him, and Odd could--and probably should--be a maladjusted freak who sees nothing but darkness and evil. But he isn't. Instead, Odd sees the world as one filled with light and beauty. Even at his darkest he finds moments of happiness and tranquility.  And rather than shun humanity, he embraces it and finds nothing but good (minus the occasional psycho who crosses his path). The people that surround him are an eclectic bunch with dark histories of their own, but they have almost universally overcome those pasts to become truly good people: Little Ozzie has overcome weight issues and the judgement of the world to become a famous novelist. Stormy, Odd's one true love, has overcome abuse to become a happy, well-adjusted person. Brother Knuckles overcame his life as a mob hitman to become a monk. And on and on. And that is one of the things I like the most about Koontz' stories: the characters overcome the world, no matter how bad and horrifying. In King's world, things just seem to remain dark and horrifying, even after the good guys have "won." I think the thing that attracts me to Koontz' stories over King's is that Koontz' vision of the world is much closer to my own. I believe that most people, regardless of their religious or political ideology, are good, decent people who are just trying to do what they think is right. I believe that there are good guys out there who do what is right just because it is right, no matter the cost to them. And while I do believe that psychos and monsters do exist, I believe that they are the exception. And, most important, I believe that no matter the darkness people have experienced in their lives, they can always overcome it. I didn't always believe this. As a kid I was very paranoid about the world--especially the world outside of St. Johns. I saw it as a terrible and terrifying place filled with evil just waiting to devour the few righteous ones. I blame this on two things: Hollywood and the isolation of St. Johns. Because the town is far removed from the "real world," my opinions of what that world was like largely came from movies and television. Is it any wonder that I thought everything beyond St. Johns' borders was nearing the Ninth Circle of Hell? But all of that changed when I served a two-week religious mission to Phoenix the summer before my senior year of high school. On the mission, I was required to meet and talk with several people--all of them strangers. Before leaving, I was terrified. I secretly worried that one of them would kill or, at the very least, hurt me. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not one of those strangers was a psycho and that, almost without exception, they were good, decent people just trying to do what they felt was right Later, my father asked me what I learned from the mission. After a brief moment of reflection, I told him simply: "That most people are good, honest people." I believe that to this day. So, to return to my original point, I don't like Stephen King. I believe in humanity more than that and, no matter how bad things are, I am optimistic for the future of mankind. In the words of William Faulkner:

I decline to accept the end of man. ... I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

So I'll avoid Stephen King from now on because I don't believe in his world. His world is filled with darkness. And while the world I believe in may often be dark and gloomy, there is always color and light and joy. And rather than be filled with egotistical maniacs and psychos, it is filled with good, decent people who overcome incredible odds to do what is right, for no other reason than that it is right. Naive? Perhaps. But which world would you rather live in?

Today, the White Mountain Independent ran a press release that I wrote about my mother-in-law (my M-I-L is the 2009 Arizona Mother of the Year). They didn't put my name on it, but I wrote it.

That's 2 things published in a month (if you don't count the fact that I sent the New Era my story over a year ago). I'm on a roll!

Here is the link to the online version.

I just realized that I never posted anything about one of the greatest things to happen to me this year: I was published!

Last year, I sent a story about an experience I had with my dad several years ago to the New Era (the LDS magazine for youth). They accepted it and even paid me (a little) for it! But then I didn't hear anything for a long time.

Finally, at the end of May this year, I got a large envelop in the mail with two copies of the New Era. And there, on page 24, was my story!

I was very excited.

Here is a link to the online version article in case anyone here hasn't seen it.

Here is the link

Enjoy!

At first glance, Dawn seems ordinary. She is in her early forties, slightly overweight, with common brown hair and eyes. But she is one of the most incredible people I have ever met.

Dawn is a photographer. She spends her days taking pictures of children at a studio off Redwood Road. On weekends she does weddings. And at night she works as a crime scene photographer.

In the twenty-five minutes it took the bus--where I met Dawn--to travel from downtown to my office, she captivated me with some of the most amazing stories.

She was the first woman to apply for the photographer job with the police department. When she applied, no one took her seriously. The first few years, she suffered through countless jokes about how she would never last. The other guys nicknamed her "chicken" and the name has stuck for more than twelve years. Now it is used in admiration.

Her first job, which was part of her interview, was to photograph an accident on the freeway. On the way, they got the details: family in a small car hit head-on by a semi-truck, two children--not wearing seat belts--were ejected through the windshield and died on impact. She didn't know how she would react to the bodies and the blood, but she bit back her fear and "did the job."

As she was finishing up, something told her to back to the body of the seven-year-old girl. A large piece of glass had lodged in the girl's throat, slicing into her jugular. As Dawn snapped her final pictures, the girl's eyes opened and, weakly, the girl whispered: "help me."

Barely thinking, Dawn dropped her camera and grabbed the EMT's. She helped extract the girl from the wreckage and then physically held the glass in place on the ambulance ride to the hospital. The girl spent six months in the hospital, but she lived.

Dawn is often called to jobs as they "go down." When this happens, she is placed across the street and snaps a stream of photographs using a telephoto lens.

"It's hard sometimes," she says. "When someone shoots someone else, you can't react. You just have to keep snapping pictures."

Often, the department receives calls for an experienced photographer to go to other locations. Dawn has worked crime scenes in Nevada, Colorado, and other places.

The job is sometimes dangerous. As she took pictures from across the street during a hostage situation, the gunman spotted her through a window and fired. The bullet grazed her camera and ear and spattered her face with gunpowder. She lay in shock for almost an hour before uttering her first words: "That was really close." She changed locations and continued snapping pictures. The gunman escaped but they caught him later and, largely due to Dawn's photographs, were able to convict him and send him away for a long time.

Recently, Dawn's boss called her into his office--the same boss that first doubted her--and asked her to train other crime scene photographers. She turned to the only four remaining from her original team. "Who isn't going to last?" she taunted. They all groaned.

When asked if she watches shows like CSI, Dawn is quick to respond. "No, I get enough of that in real life."

Originally posted Thursday, April 24, 2008